Mansfield Council has £90.6m of outstanding loans and debt, papers reveal

The council currently owes £90.652m, a fall of £6m year-on-year, but still considerably higher than three years earlier.

The figures were revealed as part of the council’s treasury management report, which assessed the authority’s financial position.

The document, relating to figures at the end of the 2020/21 financial year, reveals about £35m of the debt has been in place for more than 10 years, while a further £16.17m has been in maturity for between five and 10 years.

The document reveals £86.016m is owed to the Government’s Public Works Loan Board, a body set up to lend major cash sums to local authorities.

A further £4.5m is outstanding in a market loan, with £136,000 owed in short-term borrowing from Mansfield-based Racecourse Trust.

The council expects a £1.5m PWLB loan to be repaid in November, with a further £3m scheduled for repayment in March 28 next year.

This would see the council’s current debt reduced to about £86.152m – documents for the 2017/18 financial year show the authority owed £76.2m.

This increased to £94.8m the following year after the council borrowed £20m to fund the purchase of investment properties as alternative revenue streams and to build a property portfolio.

This portfolio includes a Travelodge hotel in Edinburgh, which the authority plans to sell next year after agreeing with the hotelier to terminate the lease.

Strategy

Coun Mark Fretwell, council governance and standards committee chairman, said: “The council has taken out no new loans in 2020/21. The council’s total borrowing stood at almost £90.7m as of March 31.

“The majority of debt is with the PWLB, which offers preferential interest rates to local authorities.

“As of March 31, the council had £27.9m invested in financial institutions, of which £6m is held with the Debt Management Office, a Government-backed agency, on a short-term basis, to meet planned expenditure.

“During 2020/21, the council did not invest in any financial institutions which fell below the minimum standards approved by the council when it set up its treasury management strategy.”

As well as owning the Edinburgh hotel, the council also owns a hotel in Doncaster, a Pure Gym in Manchester, apartments in Clapham, a Volkswagen garage in Glasgow, and a Wickes store in Essex.

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