Council leaders have been accused of “secrecy” over the assets they are looking into selling.

Opposition groups called on Southampton City Council’s Labour administration to publish details on the sites that are under consideration.

Conservative group leader Cllr Peter Baillie said there was a “lack of openness” to the asset development and disposal programme (ADDP), which was aiming to deliver capital receipts of £85 million over the next five years.

Labour chiefs said there was a requirement for confidentiality to ensure the council could achieve best value for the taxpayer.

They also said it could be the case that not all of the sites in the private report end up being sold.

The third phase of the ADDP was approved at a meeting on Wednesday, March 26.

This included putting 13 sites forward for potential sale and two for regeneration or redevelopment opportunities.

However, the assets in question have not been released to the public.

Cllr Baillie put forward a motion which would have required the executive to be “fully open and transparent” over the assets being considered.

An amendment, which was carried due to Labour’s majority, changed the wording to add “once a final decision has been made”.

Putting forward his original motion, Cllr Baillie said: “Assets of the council are owned by the residents of the city.

“The council looks after those assets on behalf of the residents of the city.

“The presumption should be that the residents have a right to know at the very least what assets are being held, their value and why assets are being sold or transformed so that there can be intervention if needed or wished for.

“I can see no good reason for there to be any exceptions to that basic premise.”

Residents should be able to know so they can lobby and campaign if they object to a disposal, the Conservative member said.

He accused the administration of “secrecy” which was “purely political”.

Cllr Baillie added: “The reasons for this administration trying to keep information regarding asset disposals confidential are simple, because they know that businesses and residents would be outraged.”

Cabinet member for economic development Cllr Sarah Bogle said: “It is about transparency at the right point in time.”

She said the confidentiality issue had “clearly exercised everyone”, adding that democratic process and transparency was “hugely important”.

“The problem is we don’t actually know exactly which ones are going to be sold and this is a five-year programme,” Cllr Bogle said.

“By putting every single thing that’s on these appendices out there doesn’t necessarily lead to better value and we might not even sell them.

“It will just cause unnecessary harm and we do need to do that further work, including soft market testing to see if it is even viable to sell some of these assets, and we need to engage ward councillors and other stakeholders in making sure that we have thought through all the issues.”

Cllr Sam Chapman, Liberal Democrat, said: “I don’t feel that this programme is coming from a bad place in terms of its aspirations.

“I feel it is probably trying to gain best value but it is weighing up this getting best value by making sure we don’t tell anyone, least of all the residents of Southampton, about what we’re planning to sell.

Cllr Chapman said he believed the confidential approach was “politically motivated”, arguing Labour did not want to open itself up to a level of political scrutiny.

Leader of the council Cllr Lorna Fielker said the Conservatives had taken a similar approach to confidentiality when they were running the council.