Former Birmingham City Council leader Mike Whitby set a few hares running some years back when he suggested that some of the city's assets could be sold to wealthy Arabs.

The controversial claim was made during an interview on one of his trips to the Middle East where he met with members of the Abu Dhabi government in a bid to boost inward investment and forge closer links with the oil rich Emirates.

This of course led to speculation that the city council’s stake in the NEC, International Convention Centre and Birmingham Airport were officially for sale, and it also painted a picture of a local authority so hard up that it cherished assets had to go.

Potential investors were no doubt spurred into action and probably turned up at the NEC with measuring tape and calculators. The right of the Tory group also rallied behind the idea, pointing out that local government has no business running concert venues, exhibition halls and airports.

But there was a hasty U-turn and Coun Whitby said that the “family silver” was not for sale and that his remarks had been misinterpreted. There would be no sale, even though at the time the council was grappling with £300 million worth of cuts.

Three years on, faced with an increasing budget deficit and the hefty equal pay liabilities now totalling £890 million, the option to sell has been tabled again – by Labour leadership challenger John Clancy.

Although very much the underdog in his bid to topple Sir Albert Bore after 14 years as Labour leader, Coun Clancy has put a manifesto to Labour comrades. He hopes to persuade them to back him in the May 11 vote – with asset sales to pay down council debt a key proposal. The city council has an asset base valued in the region of £6 billion. We can safely assume no one is going to propose selling council houses, schools, parks and playing fields and that most empty offices have already been put on the market.

Coun Clancy’s proposal names the NEC and NIA and the International Airport, and you could probably add the ICC and Symphony Hall, as well as the former Pallasades Shopping Centre – soon to be revived as Grand Central – above New Street Station.

It is argued that selling the city’s stake in these would do little to hit the deficit as that is a revenue issue and a sale is a one off receipt. But when the council expects to be making £300 million plus a year loan repayments from its £1 billion controllable budget, in the near future a one-off lump sum repayment would have an ongoing impact on the revenue budget, leaving more money for services rather than servicing debt.

The Government has also suggested that it would allow asset sales to settle some of the equal pay debts.

The challenger says: “We have so many commercial assets, we’ve forgotten why we own most of them. It’s a ridiculous thing for us to own literally billions of pounds worth.”

But rather than simply settling the debts, Clancy talks about using the cash raised, either through sales or wealth funds, to invest in infrastructure and housing to get the city working.

Despite the asset sale being periodically put forward, from both the left and right, Labour and Conservatives, both Sir Albert and Mike Whitby have steadfastly refused to consider it.

Sir Albert was, as chairman of economic development in the 1980s and 90s, heavily involved in the creation of the ICC, NIA and Symphony Hall and wider city centre regeneration schemes like Brindleyplace and the Bullring.

Coun Clancy says “we shouldn’t be sentimental about which commercial assets we sell”, the obvious assertion being that Sir Albert is reluctant to let go of them because of his earlier involvement. To those on the outside the Labour group it has to be noted that Sir Albert does not seem the sentimental type – especially when it comes to balancing the books and his position is based on the idea that a “fire sale” during the depth of the downturn may not provide best value for the taxpayer.

As leader Mike Whitby often talked of Joseph Chamberlain, the Victorian leader who built up the city’s assets – with its own water and gas supply firms, the start of a tradition which led to the council’s role in building and running the NEC, NIA, ICC and Airport. He said a sale would be “unthinkable” and that he would never get rid of the family silver. Regardless of the Labour leadership scuffle, the issue does keep rearing its head. If there is a chance that good deals could be done isn’t about time the council leadership starts thinking the unthinkable?

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Although still very much a work in progress, commuters have now seen the first evidence that Birmingham’s New Street Station has arrived in the 21st Century after the new passenger concourse opened.

They can also, for the first time in 50 years, enjoy a public right of way from the north to the south of the site, which had previously been cut off.

Journalists on a guided tour were told that Network Rail is so proud of this new, open 24 hours a day, route through its station that it is talking to the city council about naming it.

Given the investment of John Lewis in the Grand Central shopping centre and the involvement of Advantage West Midlands and its successor the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP in the project, one member of the press corps suggested that ‘Andy Street’ would be fitting.