{"id":549007,"date":"2025-11-04T18:34:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T18:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/549007\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T18:34:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T18:34:17","slug":"council-told-to-reveal-how-much-shopping-centres-are-worth-after-echo-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/549007\/","title":{"rendered":"Council told to reveal how much shopping centres are worth after ECHO appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading councillors previously claimed the \u00a310.5m shopping centre purchase was a success story\"TheThe ECHO successfully appealed a decision by Wirral Council not to release the information(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n

A council that bought two shopping centres in Birkenhead for \u00a310.5m<\/a> has been ordered to reveal how much they are worth following an appeal by the ECHO. <\/a>A decision notice said the information would likely damage vital council income but the public had a right to know.<\/p>\n

Wirral<\/a> Council has been told it must release the information following a decision by the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office (ICO). This was following an successful appeal by the ECHO<\/a> after a Freedom of Information request was refused by the local authority.<\/p>\n

In May 2023, Wirral councillors decided cross-party to purchase the Pyramids and Grange shopping centres in Birkenhead<\/a> for \u00a310.5m as part of regeneration plans for the town centre<\/a>. The shopping centres include a number of major brands such as Next, Burger King, Cex, Costa Coffee, EE, Greggs, Pandora, as well as several major banks.<\/p>\n

The shopping centres had been bought by Mars Pension Fund in 2011 for \u00a370m and income has seen a decline in recent years. The ECHO <\/a>previously revealed income had decreased by more than \u00a3100,000<\/a> since the local authority bought it and council reports suggested commercial income was continuing to decline.<\/a><\/p>\n

Wirral Council<\/a>\u2019s former Labour leader Cllr Paul Stuart and current Conservative leader Cllr Jeff Green have previously claimed the purchase was a success story for the council<\/a>. However the council\u2019s own valuations of the shopping centres have not been published since it bought them.<\/p>\n

In February 2025, the ECHO<\/a> asked for the latest individual values for major properties the council owns and spent millions of pounds buying. These included the Europa Centre, the Vue Cinema, and the Pyramids and Grange shopping centres.<\/p>\n

The council had published the values of these properties grouped together and not broken down individually like the local authority had the year before. In January, it was revealed the total value of these buildings had dropped by more than \u00a39m.<\/a><\/p>\n

Responding to the ECHO\u2019s <\/a>request, Wirral Council in March argued the information was commercially sensitive and should not be released. A review of this decision was upheld by the council.<\/p>\n

The ECHO <\/a>then took it to the ICO which then investigated the decision and has now told the council it must release the information in 30 days.<\/p>\n

According to the decision notice, Wirral Council \u201cbelieves that its commercial interests would be likely to be prejudiced if the withheld information was disclosed,\u201d adding that if the information was released, this \u201cwould undermine the council\u2019s bargaining position in relation to tenancy agreements and rental income, both with existing and future prospective tenants\u201d.<\/p>\n

However the ICO said the council \u201cmust be able to show how and why its disclosure has the potential to prejudice someone\u2019s commercial interests\u201d and provided \u201cfairly limited evidence\u201d to back this up. The ICO accepted disclosing the information could impact the council\u2019s own commercial interests and would likely affect income.<\/p>\n

In coming to its decision however, the ICO said: \u201cThe council has only provided generic public interest arguments lacking in any detail. As a consequence, the commissioner finds that the complainant has provided more persuasive public interest arguments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are based around transparency and accountability for the use of public money, scrutiny and oversight in decision-making which can be significant and have long-term consequences for the public purse. Therefore, in this instance, the public interest in the maintenance of the exemption does not outweigh the public interest in disclosing the requested information.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the request was made in February 2025, the valuations the council has been told to publish date back to March 2024. This is because the most recent valuations for 2025 were completed in March this year.<\/p>\n

Wirral Council was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading councillors previously claimed the \u00a310.5m shopping centre purchase was a success storyThe ECHO successfully appealed a decision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,12147,16,15,8881,9313],"class_list":{"0":"post-549007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-regeneration","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-wirral","16":"tag-wirral-council"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115492871708051405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}