Former care home and Covid vaccination centre sold to NHS for almost £1m
A former council-run care home has been sold to the NHS for just under £1m, a meeting heard.
Queen Elizabeth House, in Eastmoor, Wakefield, was also used a vaccination centre during the Covid pandemic.
Details of the sale were revealed at a meeting to discuss Wakefield Council’s programme of land and property sales in order to reduce its estates portfolio.
Adam Sessions, service manager for the council’s real estate team, told the audit committee that the building, on Queen Elizabeth Road, had been sold in an “off-market transaction.”
He said: “We have been able to do a really good job on that occaion.
“We did a joint valuation with the NHS, it was priced just a shade under £1m and we sold that fairly quickly and fairly cleanly.”
Mr Sessions said the building had previously been held as a possible site for SEND facilities.
He said: “It was being looked at. That’s another feature that we often contend with – we want to sell something but we also want to hold it for potential use in a year or two’s time.
“But you hold it for a year or two and then it goes into the ether and then you have to start again.”
The meeting heard the council is expecting to receive around £20m from the sale of public land and property during the next financial year.
The authority was also set to generate £5.4m during the current year from similar asset disposals as part of efforts to downsize its estate portfolio due to financial pressures.