Did pressure to save Oxford United Football Club from extinction back in 1999 cause Oxford City Council to part with public assets worth millions at way below their market price?

That is a question to which The Oxford Times has been demanding an answer, on behalf of council taxpayers, under the Freedom of Information Act, since February 2005. We asked the council for financial details of the purchase by Firoz Kassam in 2000 of land at Minchery Farm adjoining the football stadium, where the Ozone Leisure Park now stands.

Now the city council has at last sent The Oxford Times the two relevant valuations - which it had originally commissioned from commercial property and planning consultants Rapleys and from business advisors Grant Thornton.

But information about exactly how much Mr Kassam's company Firoka finally paid up is still lacking.

Under the terms of the FOI Act, the Information Commissioner ordered the council to tell all, but the council has appealed against that decision. The appeal is expected to come before the Information Tribunal early next month.

According to the Rapleys report, dated October 1999, the total value on the open market of the 25 acres of development land on which the Ozone Leisure Park now stands, containing the Vue multiplex cinema, Bowlplex bowling alley, and the Ozone Health and Fitness Club, was £2.5m.

In addition, a value of between £400,000 and £600,000 was put on the land the other side of the Kassam Stadium, on which Mr Kassam's Holiday Inn Express hotel now stands.

Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 states that councils may not dispose of land "for a consideration less than the best that can be reasonably obtained".

The problem confronting the council in 1999 was how to use the carrot of the adjoining development land to tempt Mr Kassam to rescue the club without falling foul of the Local Government Act.

The question is: did it succeed? That was a question we put to district auditor Andy Burns, who spent two years trying to obtain information from the council before announcing that it "probably" had got best value and that he had decided to "give the council the benefit of the doubt".

We asked him whether he had seen the Rapleys and Grant Thornton valuations which the council has now sent to us.

He replied: "Yes, I am aware of the two valuations from Rapleys and from Grant Thornton."

According to a letter from the council's legal department to the district auditor, and leaked to The Oxford Times, the council received just £1.294m for all the land.

Councillor John Tanner led the negotiations with Mr Kassam on behalf of the Labour-led council, although the deal went through when Labour had lost power to a Lib-Green coalition. Mr Tanner, who is now Lord Mayor of Oxford, said this week: "The deal with Mr Kassam was that he would build us a stadium, which he did. If he had not done that, it's true we should have received about £3m for the leisure land. In any case, the district auditor has signed off the accounts."

In order to satisfy the requirement that the council should receive best value for its asset, the council at first entered into detailed negotiations with Firoka whereby the company would give the council 20 per cent of the equity in the stadium as payment for the land - including the Ozone.

Accountants Grant Thornton were therefore asked to value shares in Firoka Oxford United Stadium Ltd, (Firoka OUS), the company which owned the stadium. The accountants valued Firoka OUS at £3.8m and the 20 per cent equity, therefore, at £760,000.

However, this share of the stadium was in the end never handed over to the council and Mr Kassam still remains the owner of the Kassam Stadium to this day. Mr Kassam was unavailable for comment.

Grant Thornton wrote in the first paragraph of its report: "It is understood that the council requires this valuation in order that it may satisfy itself that the requirements of Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 have not been infringed."

The present owner of Oxford United, Nick Merry, does not own the Kassam Stadium. He said: "I would like to buy the stadium from Mr Kassam and delicate negotiations are continuing.

"It's obviously interesting to hear about the past history and valuations, but I have to deal with things as they are now. And now the stadium belongs to Mr Kassam and not to the local council."