A plot of cleared land in the centre of Swindon will be sold for housing by Swindon Borough Council.

But the borough’s taxpayers won’t be allowed to whom or know for how much.

The Conservative-run cabinet has agreed, and the decision has been endorsed by the council’s Scrutiny Committee, to sell 3.7 acres of land behind the new Zurich building, bound by Corporation Street and Manchester Road to an unnamed “major financial institution”.

When the cabinet discussed and agreed to the sale last week it went into private session, excluding press and public, for parts of the item in order to protect details of the deal it is making.

This is standard procedure for a number of reasons, not least so the authority can try and maximise the price it gets in later sales of land.

The proposal put to the cabinet said: “The proposal would deliver a high quality build-to-rent scheme of around 100 mainly family units, mostly two- and three-bed maisonettes and two-bed flats, which would be built out and then retained and managed by the financial institution.

“The design has taken into account the adjoining residential streets and key routes and provides green spaces for the use of the occupants.

“The FI has the funding and expertise to deliver the quality of development that reflects the Council’s ambition for Kimmerfields to be the Council’s key place-making development in the town centre.”

The report said there was also a possibility of selling the land for the building of more flats and houses to be sold on the open market, but that would not make any more money for the council and would take longer to deliver.

Leader of the council David Renard said: “Developing the area and building on the success of the Zurich building is very important.”

A fellow cabinet member Dale Heenan, who was closely involved in the development of the area in his previous cabinet role said: “We should all be welcoming this. We are finally getting momentum behind the redevelopment of the town centre.

“The Zurich building is nearly completed, work has begun on Fleming Way. We’ve been talking about all this for a while, and now it’s finally happening.”

Negotiations continue with the buyer, but the report to cabinet says it is hoped the agreement with the financial institution can finalised by the end of the year.