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Hi ,
How do councils raise money when they are facing funding cuts across Scotland?
Well for almost all of them, a recent approach has been selling off council property.
Here at The Ferret, we decided to find out just how many of our council-owned buildings have been lost this way. So we put in a lot of freedom of information requests to find out!
The answer was staggering. Between 2020 and 2024, more than 1,800 bits of local authority property have been sold, including homes, schools, community centres, civic halls, public toilets and libraries.
To find out how much your council has sold to help balance the books, keep reading. |
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Yours,
Ali |
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Story of the week |
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An in-depth look at a Ferret investigation |
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Scotland’s cash-strapped councils have sold off 1,851 homes, schools, community centres, civic halls and other properties in recent years amidst budget shortfalls, The Ferret can reveal.
Thirty-one local authorities disposed of the public assets between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2024, generating £243m in revenue, according to data we obtained via freedom of information.
The sales include 113 former schools and nurseries, 69 community centres and civic halls, 17 care homes, 14 public toilets and eight libraries. |
| Read the full story |
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What did we dig up this week? |
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A round up of our investigations in the last seven days |
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Claim Scottish Government spent £700 each on bikes for children is Half True
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A Scottish Government scheme to give free bikes to school children who cannot afford them has been criticised after reports emerged about the costs involved. |
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Question of the week |
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Have you noticed council services getting worse in
recent years?
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| No |
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We now have a platform exclusive for Ferret Underground subscribers where you can share ideas about future investigations, answer polls and more!
Create an account here to get access.
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Best of the rest |
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Investigations we've enjoyed from around the world |
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Ukraine wing of US-founded terrorist group says it was involved in killing of intelligence officer in Kyiv
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The Base, a far-right group with suspected links to Russia, said killing of Ivan Voronych was ‘only the beginning’. (Guardian) |
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The international network of public transport scams and its links to Russia and Vietnam
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More than 1,000 Facebook pages are impersonating public transportation services in 746 cities and regions around the world, but they are phishing scams. (Maldita.es) |
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Hackers can remotely trigger the brakes on American trains and the problem has been ignored for years |
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Many trains in the U.S. are vulnerable to a hack that can remotely lock a train’s brakes, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity agency. (404 Media) |
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