PROPERTY disposals have earned Devon just over £7 million and the hopes are the same amount could be secured this year.

The biggest ticket item sold by Devon County Council in the year to March 31 was land at Aldens Farm in Alphington, for £4 million, where a large housing application of more than 180 homes has been approved.

Exeter’s Compass House earned the council £900,000, the second biggest sale amount from the 12 sites or buildings it sold.

Councillors at the authority’s cabinet meeting heard the council expected to earn a similar amount – around £7 million - in the current financial year.

The authority has slated four sites for possible sale or repurposing.

Outgoing leader John Hart (Conservative, Wembury and Bickleigh) said that in the past 12 years, the authority had ‘raised a considerable amount of money and reduced our property holdings, money which has been put into the capital expenditure pot, by and large’.