A TRANSFER of housing stock including half of the land comprising Burnham’s allotments made decades ago was worth more than £20 million.

The Standard revealed last week that half of the allotment land near Arcadia Road in Burnham, previously thought to have been owned by Burnham Town Council, is in fact owned by Moat Housing.

The land was transferred to Moat in March 1995 by Maldon District Council as part of a large scale voluntary transfer of housing stock.

Now, a Freedom of Information request reveals the transfer to Plume Housing (now Moat) was worth a total of £21,624,680.

These funds were held in the district council’s capital reserves along with other receipts from the sale and disposal of other assets.

As of March 2015, the amount remaining in the council’s reserves stood at £6,023,000.

A spokesman for Maldon District Council said: “The valuation for the Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT) in 1995 of properties to Moat (previously Plume Housing) was derived from their expected use value for social housing; considering income and expenditure projected forward for 25 years and brought back to today's (1995) value. This included the land used as allotments.”

It is not known how much of the £21 million was made from the allotment land due to a lack of council records dating back more than a decade.

Moat Housing have previously stated there are no plans to change to use of the allotment land.