A national property and regeneration company that specialises in joint ventures to redevelop town centre sites engaged Cratus to conduct an in depth research project on the financial positions of target councils.

Having established with the client which councils may have town centre regeneration opportunities Cratus produced a report that detailed not just the headline financial figures for the councils but which delved deeper into explaining the specific issues in each local authority. This was achieved by using our in-house expertise in council finance and by conducting confidential interviews with senior officers and councillors in the relevant councils.

By doing this we were able to provide the client with an explanation of where the councils may be able to match their investment and where exactly the councils’ financial challenges were. In some councils it was a simple case of having been overleveraged. In others the challenges were rooted in issues such as low council tax bases, an overdependence on business rate income or weaknesses around their past performance on raising income from commercial ventures.

These insights enabled the client to tailor their approach to different target areas and informed their ultimate decisions on whether to continue pursuing opportunities.