Scores of public buildings including schools, libraries and youth centres have been sold off in Dorset in a move which has raised almost £17 million.

Almost 40 different Dorset County Council-owned buildings were disposed of in a four-year period, newly-compiled data reveals.

The findings lay bare the spiralling impact of eight successive years of austerity, leaving services shut and buildings closed. Councils around the country have been forced to take ever more desperate measures to stay in the black as their funding from central government has been cut by about 60 per cent since 2010.

The data was compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, working with HuffPost UK. Around the country it found that, through Freedom of Information requests, more than 12,000 public spaces were disposed of by councils since 2014/15, raising a total of £9.1 billion.

The Bureau says some local authorities are using the money raised from selling off buildings and land to pay for hundreds of redundancies, including in vital frontline services.

Previously, money made from selling public assets could only be used to fund the cost of buying new ones. In April 2016, the then Chancellor George Osborne relaxed the rules to allow local authorities to spend the proceeds on cost-cutting measures, such as sharing back-office functions with other authorities, investing in new technology or other reforms which have upfront costs but reduce spending in the long-term.

A map showing what has been sold where can be found at https://council-sell-off.thebureauinvestigates.com

In Dorset, the country council sold 37 spaces for £16,986,650. The list includes the former Southwell Primary School on Portland sold to the open market for £795,000, land at Sea View Farm at Chickerell sold to the sitting tenant for £495,000, Alexandra Road Training Suite for Learning Disability in Weymouth sold for housing for £555,000, a former care home in Mount Pleasant Avenue, Weymouth sold to the open market for £812,000, and a care home in Dorchester sold to the open market for £570,500. Some youth centres are listed, which were transferred to new operators after funding was controversially slashed.

“If given the choice – would you consider selling a disused council building to raise funds to deliver a balanced budget – or would you retain that asset for potential future use but instead cut adult social care, or raise charges for care packages?” asked the director of the County Councils Network Simon Edwards.

“Local politicians do not go into public service to slash and burn or make valued staff redundant, let alone sell assets to do this. But this is the financial reality of years of funding reductions and rising demand,” he said.

Peter Scarlett, Service Manager – Estate and Assets (Dorset County Council) said: “In 2010 the county council adopted a strategy to rationalise its property estate. At the time it owned over 750 properties across the county and the decision was predicated on the fact that it had an insufficient budget to maintain this size of estate. It therefore adopted a strategy to proactively dispose of its surplus properties and To date it has disposed of in excess of 150 assets, a number of which have been gifted to community groups. More recently, the county council has set itself a target to reduce the running cost of its estate over a five year period by £1.7m per annum.

“Much of the cost savings to date has been around the office estate, where the authority has rolled out agile working across its estate, with staff working to a 6:10 desk ratio. The county council has reduced its office estate from 26 buildings down to eight.located in key towns across the county. This programme has saved the county council in the order of £600,000 per annum in running costs., whilst improving working conditions for staff in the retained buildings. The authority has also developed a programme of centralising services with other public sector bodies into key buildings to create a comprehensive community offer. This entails better use of public buildings and a targeted offer of public services based on the needs of the local communities.

“Where the county council has disposed of surplus assets the proceeds of sale have been reinvested into the authority’s capital programme, and used to repay borrowing. With the convergence of the county council with the district and borough councils it is anticipated that there will be further opportunities to rationalise the combined property estates and generate further savings. These initiatives have been driven by sound estate management principles and a desire to provide better targeted services to local communities out of modern buildings. Whilst a desire to reduce costs has been a factor, this should be an objective of any forward thinking organisation and isn’t as a direct result of austerity.”