Sefton Council paid £684,276 in fees to professional services companies who advised them on the purchase of The Strand shopping centre.

Sefton bought the shopping centre in Bootle town centre earlier this year in a deal thought to be worth around £32m which was paid for with loans.

Sefton has said the deal will not impact on taxpayers in Sefton, and their ownership of the Strand will help them to raise enough money to manage the centre and regenerate the area.

However Sefton’s Liberal Democrats have discovered that the council paid nearly £700,000 to professional firms during the deal. Councillor Iain Brodie-Brown told the ECHO that the figures were found on Sefton’s website.

He said that the the payments, which took place over a five month period this year, were linked to Sefton’s acquisition of the Strand.

The main payments were £235,158 to PricewaterhouseCoopers; £257,500 to law firm Addleshaw Goddard and £90,600 to property consultants Lambert Smith Hampton.

The invoice from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global business services firm, reads: “Financial due diligence, tax structuring, and due diligence, financial and commercial advice in relation to the acquisition of the Strand shopping centre (Bootle) and in accordance with the Consultancy One Service order dated 21 February 2017.”

Cllr Brodie-Brown told the ECHO that he raised the payments at a full council meeting last week, but did not receive the answers he wanted.

He said: “All councils are required to regularly publish details of all invoices over £500. In fact Sefton Council does this on its own website in a section called ‘transparency reports.’

“What we have found is that there are a number of enormous invoices from firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Addleshaw Goddard and Lambert Smith Hampton, all charged to a particular cost centre UA25. These are tax accountants, lawyers and property consultants respectively.

“We’ve even managed to get hold of a copy of the largest invoice – for £205,950 + VAT – from PricewaterhouseCooper, and when you see that includes ‘Tax Structuring and Due Diligence.’

“So what we now know is that over two-thirds of a million pounds has been spent, and that was only to the end of August. That will almost certainly have risen even more.”

“This lack of openness is simply unacceptable.

“The public, as well as opposition councillors, have a right to know how public money has been spent.”

Earlier this month The Times newspaper reported that Sefton bought the Strand through a company registered in Luxembourg. The Times claimed the deal enabled Sefton to avoid paying £1.5m in stamp duty. However Sefton refuted any suggestion of ‘tax avoidance’.

A spokesman for Sefton Council told the ECHO: “Similar questions were asked by Cllr Brodie-Browne at last week’s full council meeting. He was advised that the legal processes involving The Strand shopping centre are still ongoing and details of the transaction will be subject to a review by the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee in due course.”