Investing in commercial property was adopted by the council last year as a way of creating surplus money to reinvest in its services.

At present, the council’s commercial property investment strategy generates £2m annually and the additional investment could see that return grow to £3m by 2019/20.

The council does not invest in any high-risk properties and has a careful due diligence process in place for considering which properties to invest in.

The strategy is part of the council’s overarching transformation programme to provide more efficient and cost-effective services by 2020, plugging a £25m funding gap.

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“Given the financial challenge facing the council, we've been looking at ways of generating income to supplement our reducing levels of government funding,” explained Cllr Peter Heydon, executive member for finance and transformation.

“To this end, we have been successfully investing in commercial property and this provides around £2m in net revenue for us to fund services for our residents.

“In order to see that annual income rise to £3m, the executive looked at increasing our investment in commercial property by up to £30m last week.”

Bracknell Forest Council is not the only such organisation to use this strategy, as Peter added: “Many other local authorities successfully invest in commercial property and see a healthy return.

“We always strenuously vet any property that we are considering, the figures must stack up and the risk must be minimised – we will always reject properties that do not meet our strict criteria.”