Mizter T wrote:
On 01/03/2014 09:57, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at
01:49:02 on Sat, 1 Mar 2014, Offramp remarked:
A former London Underground station, used as a World War Two command
centre, has been sold for £53m.
...
The money from the sale will be put back into the defence budget...

Isn't £50m about ten minutes of defence budget?

(And a hundred yards of HS2 perhaps).

This sale has to be "political" in some way, ie demonstrating that
assets are being disposed of, however relatively trivial the sum.

Far better had it been leased out at a peppercorn rate to a museum, who
could probably then get lottery money to refurbish and open it.

You might not have noticed, but HMG are doing a fair bit of selling off
of property that's deemed no longer necessary.

Indeed, and apart from the sale proceeds, the activities involved in
constructing and occupying the new building will presumably generate
on-going tax proceeds (business rates, council tax, VAT, income tax,
corporation tax, etc). It will also provide more homes, though probably not
exactly "affordable" ones. Had it stayed in MoD ownership, it would have
needed maintenance and not generated any income.