The cash-strapped local authority owns a portfolio of land and property across the borough, including industrial areas and commercial buildings.
Addressing a corporate overview and scrutiny panel, Chris Joyce, the council’s assistant director of placemaking partnerships and sustainability, said: “We have got a number of assets that have lacked investment and that puts maintenance and cost pressures and operational pressures across the estate.
“We need to set up the right approach in terms of governance and planning so that we can move from a reactive approach to [a] more proactive and strategic long-term approach.”
At the Maidenhead Town Hall meeting on Thursday (June 11), he told councillors that this is ‘a journey’ as historically, RBWM has had a ‘fragmented’ way of overseeing its property estate.
Much of the borough’s property portfolio was previously managed by the controversial RBWM Property Company, but a decision was made to bring these services back in-house last year.
The council can agree to sell some of its assets to address financial pressures.
Councillor Genevieve Gosling (Con, Sunningdale and Cheapside) asked how much money will be raised by implementing this strategy.
Mr Joyce explained that this framework is not about setting a target for how much money can be raised from assets.
“We might consider those assets [to be] more valuable to the council in terms of delivering statutory services or delivering other benefits,” he said.
Assets will be assessed using a traffic light system, from those that perform well to those that need improvement or require intervention.
Cllr George Shaw (Lib Dem, Boyn Hill) said that recently, decisions around assets were made because people approached the council about changes to long-term leases or freeholds.
He asked if an asset has to be at a rating or certain level for such offers or disposals to be considered.
Cllr Chris Moriarty (Lib Dem, Cox Green), the lead member for asset management, said: “I don’t think that that is a sensible approach because someone might come in with an extraordinary offer for a green asset.”
The traffic light system would give the council useful context when creating a business case for a specific asset and ‘almost sets the tone’ for the decision-making process, he added.
The sensitivity and civic importance of an asset is part of the wider considerations when assessing an asset – whether it’s performing well or not – alongside other aspects such as maintenance costs, its condition and what the asset is used for.
Cllr Jack Douglas (TBFI, St Mary’s) asked if members would have access to the full list of assets and the level at which they are performing.
“I think perhaps as councillors and ward councillors in particular in some cases, we’ve got our finger on the pulse of what public sensitivity is,” he argued.
Other councillors recognised the importance of transparency when it comes to assets and knowing how these rank.
“We should, as a consistent approach, always include a red-amber-green level to help support those evaluations and decisions that are made,” Cllr Gary Reeves (Lib Dem, Cox Green) said.
Cllr Mandy Brar (Lib Dem, Bisham and Cookham), who is also a parish councillor, said the parish looks at what assets are doing well or not at its annual meeting.
Cllr Moriarty reassured panel members that the asset framework and ranking will be used when making decisions. He suggested showing how assets are performing could be displayed through a percentage of how many assets are ranked red and how that’s improving over time.
But he recognised commercial sensitivity has to be considered for some assets as well and said the council can look at what other authorities have done around this.
He said: “Let’s just make sure we do it in the right proportional way so that we get the transparency we need, we get the performance information we need, but we don’t end up diving into the weeds on every single individual asset.”
A final version of the asset management framework 2026-2029 is due to come before the Royal Borough’s cabinet in September.