Council property investment tops £7.5bn since 2013
Council investment in UK commercial real estate shows no sign of slowing down, peaking at £1.9bn so far this year, according to Radius Data Exchange analysis.
This means that since 2013 local authority spending across all property sectors has topped £7.5bn, with more than £2.2bn being invested in 2019 to date.
Overall, councils have invested £3.5bn into office assets and a further £2.4bn into retail and leisure stores and schemes.
Council investment in UK commercial real estate shows no sign of slowing down, peaking at £1.9bn so far this year, according to Radius Data Exchange analysis.
This means that since 2013 local authority spending across all property sectors has topped £7.5bn, with more than £2.2bn being invested in 2019 to date.
Overall, councils have invested £3.5bn into office assets and a further £2.4bn into retail and leisure stores and schemes.
Spelthorne Borough Council remains the most active buyer by value, investing £947m over the past six years, while Surrey County Council has chimed in with 26 individual deals, making it most active in terms of number of individual assets. Spelthorne publicly withdrew from two massive central London office deals earlier this year, which would have pushed its figure well past £1.2bn.
Photo above: Spelthorne Borough Council acquired BP’s business campus in Sunbury-on-Thames in 2016 for £360m, and it remains the council’s largest single property deal to date
The amount spent by councils investing in other councils’ jurisdiction has increased since 2013, but experienced a 44% drop this year from 2018’s boom figure of £944m to £523m. This year, almost 30% of spend on commercial real estate has been into external local authorities, compared with 48% last year.
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