Council to sell city centre site to Homes England

Leicester City Council is set to sell a plot of land in the city's cultural quarter in the hope it will be turned into an office complex.

The authority has said it wants to sell a plot it owns in Midland Street, near the Phoenix Cinema, to the government regeneration agency Homes England for £1.15m.

A report, published by the council, said if the deal is agreed Homes England would lease the site back to the authority and pay £300,000 to fund the cost of getting planning permission for an office scheme.

A strip of land on the site would become a new pedestrian access to the cinema from St George Street, the council added.

The site was recently acquired by the council in a landswap deal with a developer.

Under the terms of the deal, the council will lease the site back from Homes England for a peppercorn rent.

The report said the Labour-run authority wanted to address a shortage of city centre office space by creating a 20,000 sq m (215,000 sq ft) development aimed at regenerating the area.

However, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), the latest proposal for the site has led to concerns being raised by councillors.

Liberal Democrat oppostion councillor Nigel Porter said he had doubts about the valuations the council had put on the site.

"In the end this should all be about transparency," he said.

"Local taxpayers want to know that good value has been achieved and that the office development will actually happen, not that land will sit empty for months and years on end while questions about the real land value remain unanswered."

A Leicester City Council spokesperson said: "This collaboration agreement with Homes England will help accelerate the much-needed regeneration of this part of the city and bring real benefit.

"The land deal will allow Homes England to take a stake in ambitious proposals for an office-led regeneration programme which will help bring new jobs and inward investment into the city.

"It also makes around £1.5m of new government funding available to the city council to enable further land acquisition which will ultimately support local job creation through much-needed office development.

"More immediately, it will make £300,000 of grant money available to support the development of outline planning permission for new office development in this part of the cultural quarter, and to progress improvements to public realm and highways in this important part of the city.

"This will help make the area more attractive to potential investors, acting as a catalyst for future development."

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