Councillors in Southampton have agreed to sell off assets as part of a programme set to raise up to £85m.

The Labour cabinet agreed to spend £1.12m on 'transformation work' as it faces calls to speed up its work on becoming financially stable.

It comes at a time when Southampton City Council needs to save millions of pounds - and is asking for an exceptional support package from the Government.

More than £500,000 of the spend will be poured into a major review of its assets, commercial deals and investments.

A council report said the Asset Development and Disposal Programme could see a financial benefit of around £85m over the next two years - with this largely coming from the selling of the authority's assets.

Income will also come from council tax, business rates and revenue savings.

The report said a ‘dedicated team’ of ‘specialists’ is needed to identify money-making opportunities across housing, business and culture.

It adds: "The Asset Development and Disposal Programme (ADDP) will be undertaking a review of all corporate and operational assets and commercial and investment assets to identify if best consideration would be achieved by retention, development or disposal.

"The outcomes expected from this programme include the development of homes, commercial premises/businesses, jobs, learning and skills opportunities, enhanced public realm, increased spending in the city supporting culture, restaurants, and retail."

Speaking at the cabinet meeting where the spend was approved, Councillor Lorna Fielker, leader of the council said: “Releasing the fund (will) enable us to rapidly progress the transformation work that we want to take which will lead us to become the modern sustainable council that we want to be."

Another chunk of the £1.12m new spend will go on new staff who will identify areas for saving in social care and strategic improvement.

The report also said £65,000 will be spent on the new employees’ allowances, expenses, variable payments, working hours, redundancy payments, and external learning and development.

The report went on to say: “The project team will be made up of employees from within HR, legal, projects and change, finance, with the potential to draw in new strategic expertise alongside enabling more time for the unions to participate and support other transformation activity.

Some of the savings identified include £500,000 on implementing a ‘joint working’ structure and £250,000 on ‘streamlining’ the organisation’s executive management team.

According to the report, competition for some of the new roles is ‘fierce’. The council said that if it was to ‘absorb all activity’ within existing resource levels, meaning no £1.12m spend, it would ‘take far longer’ and it would not see the benefits until ‘further into the future’.