SEVEN golf courses, a hotel and a car showroom are just some of the unusual properties owned by Bradford Council, new research shows.

Now a campaign group for taxpayers has called on the authority to have a "drastic rethink" of its priorities.

The TaxPayers' Alliance asked each local authority in the UK to divulge what assets they had on their books, and the results showed Bradford Council owned two farms, three shops, two shopping centres, four theatres and an industrial estate, among other properties.

Bradford was placed joint-fourth on a list of councils owning the most golf courses, and was also joint-fourth on a list of those with the most theatres.

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It had the UK's seventh-highest number of council-owned car parks, with 140 sites in total.

Earlier this year, Labour-led Bradford Council rejected an offer of Government support to freeze Council Tax, instead raising it by 1.6 per cent.

Now the TaxPayers' Alliance has blasted councils which raise taxes while sitting on these kinds of assets.

Chief executive Jonathan Isaby said: "It looks deeply hypocritical for councils to plead poverty as an excuse for hiking Council Tax when they've got such a huge asset portfolio.

"Local authorities should be focussed on essential services.

"The time has come for a serious discussion on what councils should, and should not, be doing - a drastic rethink which saw many of these assets returned to the private sector where some of them clearly belong would be a dramatic step towards a balanced budget and protecting taxpayers."

But deputy council leader Councillor Val Slater said the authority had already been selling off a lot of its assets, and many of the properties it had kept were generating income.

She said: "It's a balance. It's about either having that income, that goes towards other services, or selling off the asset.

"But if you sell the asset, you only get one lump of money."

On the number of golf courses the council owned, Cllr Slater said: "That does seem quite a number but you have got to bear in mind that this is a large district.

"What we want to do is to encourage people to take up leisure activities and very often private golf courses are totally out of the reach of the average Bradfordian, I would say."

Councillor Simon Cooke, leader of the opposition Conservative group on Bradford Council, said selling off some properties could help the council raise the money to build new facilities, like schools or swimming pools.

But he said the question of whether the council should sell off assets was a complex one.

He said: "I certainly think it is something we should look at, but we need to bear in mind that some of these assets generate significant income.

"So we have to be careful about saying it is going to create a saving in Council Tax."

Properties and land owned by Bradford Council includes the Riverside Hotel and Restaurant in Ilkley, Airedale Shopping Centre in Keighley, Arndale Shopping Centre in Shipley, Bingley Arts Centre, Birksland Industrial Estate in Bradford, a car showroom in Thornton Road, Bradford, Hollins Hill Farm in Guiseley, Riddlesden Golf Club, St Ives Estate Golf Course, Calverley Golf Course and Bradford Moor Golf Club, the TaxPayers' Alliance research shows.