ENGLISH councils are flogging off land and property to developers to plug financial holes caused by government cuts and to pay for redundancies that they make during austerity.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s claim that “austerity is over” has been shattered by an investigation by the independent non-profit Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Using the Freedom of Information law, it found that 12,000 publicly owned spaces and properties have been sold since 2015-16.