COUNCIL chiefs have signed off plans for a £1.5billion joint venture to deliver up to 10,000 homes on publicly owned sites across Surrey and East Sussex.

As part of the Government’s proposals to tackle the nationwide housing crisis, councils in England and Wales have been offered the opportunity to ‘unlock’ public land for the construction of mixed use development schemes, whilst also creating assets with income generating potential.

Following a procurement process, Surrey County Council’s cabinet confirmed housing association Places for People as a 50/50 partner ‘to deliver these benefits,’ at its meeting just before Christmas, at its headquarters at Kingston.

The project, which Surrey hopes will help offset a projected £19million overspend in the current financial year, is believed to be an unprecedented move for a county-wide authority in England and Wales.

Announcing the new “limited liability partnership,” Surrey’s cabinet member for property and business services Tim Oliver said: “Through this proposed joint venture, we intend to create a partnership which will not only provide Surrey with much needed extra housing, which will help our boroughs and districts, but also create the opportunity for us to raise funds for services as government support continues to disappear.

“I know some people have expressed concerns around a strategy of using property to raise revenue to support services but we would be failing in our duty to residents if we did not.”

However, as hinted by Mr Oliver, the announcement comes amid fierce criticism from opposition county councillors who claim Surrey’s “high-risk” plans are still “shrouded in secrecy”.

Surrey is yet to publish a full list of the sites earmarked for development, although a Freedom of Information request by opposition councillors has revealed where half of the planned sites are located - including a site adjoining St Paul’s CofE School in Tongham.

Hazel Watson, leader of the council’s Lib Dems group said: “Although I welcome action being taken at long last to utilise county council-owned buildings and land which have been left vacant for many years, the proposed joint venture between the county council and an external company fails to meet the needs of Surrey residents and is lacking in safeguards and is shrouded in secrecy.

“There is insufficient detail in the public domain to give an assurance that the council’s property and finances will be adequately safeguarded and that the needs of Surrey residents will be met.”

Mrs Watson has also criticised Surrey’s policy for failing to promise more than the minimum-allowed level of much-needed affordable housing.

She added: “With such high property prices in Surrey, genuinely affordable housing is desperately needed so that social workers, teachers and care workers can afford to live here.

“However, the proposal does not contain a commitment to provide above the minimum amount of affordable housing, which is simply not good enough.

“The joint venture proposal is a missed opportunity to help meet Surrey’s need for genuinely affordable housing and to meet other needs such as for special needs places for children and housing in the community for adults with learning disabilities.

“This deal is for selling off council land and buildings for the maximum amount of money and income without adequately considering the public benefit."

Places for People, which manages more than 189,000 homes, was shortlisted by Surrey County Council in April this year alongside four housebuilders.

Following the cabinet’s decision, the joint venture could also be made available to other authorities, including the district and borough councils and nearby police and health authorities, by creating their own partnerships as subsidiaries to the main body.Surrey’s announcement came just days after the Local Government Association (LGA) voiced funding fears over the loss of nearly half of local authority funding between 2010 and 2020.Pointing to delays in the roll-out of a Government business rates retention scheme, in which councils such as Surrey hope to retain 100 per cent of the rates collected in their areas, the LGA has warned authorities are heading towards a “cliff-edge” - with 2020 funding cuts threatening to push some councils to financial breaking point and thus putting services under threat. The LGA has called for the pace of funding reductions to be slowed in 2018/19 and 2019/20, and asked Whitehall to clarify its intentions on business rates.Nick Forbes, senior vice chairman of the LGA, said councils were facing “double jeopardy” with fears about funding in the immediate future and a lack of information on other investment past 2020.He said: “Councils face an overall £5.8billion funding gap in just two years yet the Budget disappointingly offered nothing to ease the financial pressure on local services.“Our communities and the local services they rely on cannot take another two years of funding cuts with no solution in sight. The Local Government Finance Settlement must put this right.“Smoothing out funding cuts over the next few years, introducing a fairer funding system and allowing local government to keep every penny of business rates collected to plug funding gaps is now the only way the government can ensure local authorities are able to protect the services communities rely on over the next few years.”