Northamptonshire project for 418 affordable homes to deliver 82
Hastie told the meeting NPH's performance concerns were "lack of skills, commercial acumen, technical errors and poor transparency... getting one's ambitions mixed up with their abilities basically to the point of almost reckless incompetence".A report in November 2024 highlighted similar issues with projects.It led to Homes England requesting West Northamptonshire Council withdraw its grant request totalling £17.3m split between the Avenue campus and Roof Gardens schemes.
What is happening with the projects?
The three housing projects were due to deliver more than 400 affordable homes.Avenue Campus was due to create up to 170 homes. To date, £13.7m has been spent on the project and holding costs for the site are about £15,000 per month. It will now be sold off to a developerRoof Gardens in Spring Boroughs was due to deliver 126 affordable properties, but so far just 24 houses have been built and only a further 58 will be able to be built on the site. A total of 82 properties is the same amount that was previously on the siteBelgrave House is a large 1970s office block that had been identified as a scheme to create 122 key worker homes. £3.6m has been spent so far on it with a holding cost of £87,000 per year. The building is set to be demolished
'An absolute major scandal'
Independent councillor Ian McCord called for a public inquiry into NPH, saying it "was a scandalous waste of taxpayers' money".Jonathan Harris, the Liberal Democrat group leader, said: "This entire issue is one unwholly costly mess."It does smell of gross incompetence and once we've resolved matters this council needs to take a step back and find out what has really gone on." The leader of the Labour group, Sally Keeble, said: "This is an absolute major scandal, and I agree with the other councillors who have called for an inquiry into it."I appreciate there is other work to be done but there are some serious, serious questions to be answered."The meeting was told these failures will have a continued impact on the authority's ability to provide future affordable homes.The Conservatives and Northamptonshire Partnership Homes have been contacted for comment.
Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
Paul Weller sues former accountants after being dropped over Gaza statements
Musician Paul Weller is suing his former accountants after they stopped working with the singer after public statements alleging Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, according to a legal letter. The former frontman of The Jam has filed a discrimination claim against Harris and Trotter after the firm ended their professional relationship after more than 30 years. In a pre-action letter seen by the PA news agency, lawyers for Weller say the singer-songwriter was told in March that the accountants and tax advisers would no longer work with the 67-year-old or his companies. According to the letter, a WhatsApp message from a partner at the firm included: 'It's well known what your political views are in relation to Israel, the Palestinians and Gaza, but we as a firm are offended at the assertions that Israel is committing any type of genocide. 'Everyone is entitled to their own views, but you are alleging such anti-Israel views that we as a firm with Jewish roots and many Jewish partners are not prepared to work with someone who holds these views.' Lawyers for Weller claim that by ending their services, the firm unlawfully discriminated against the singer's protected philosophical beliefs including that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that Palestine should be recognised as a nation state. Weller said: 'I've always spoken out against injustice, whether it's apartheid, ethnic cleansing, or genocide. What's happening to the Palestinian people in Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe. 'I believe they have the right to self-determination, dignity, and protection under international law, and I believe Israel is committing genocide against them. That must be called out. 'Silencing those who speak this truth is not just censorship – it's complicity. 'I'm taking legal action not just for myself, but to help ensure that others are not similarly punished for expressing their beliefs about the rights of the Palestinian people.' Weller will donate any damages he receives to humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, the legal letter also states. Cormac McDonough, a lawyer at Hodge Jones and Allen, representing Weller, said that his case 'reflects a wider pattern of attempts to silence artists and public figures who speak out in support of Palestinian rights'. Mr McDonough added: 'Within the music industry especially, we are seeing increasing efforts to marginalise those who express solidarity with the people of Gaza.'
Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
The real difficulty ministers face is that the Epping hotel judgment is a clean and fair application of the law: ANDREW TETTENBORN
There's a beautiful irony in the Epping hotel injunction. The Government's immigration policy of putting asylum seekers in hotels in some of the less well-off parts of the country has received a major blow from the legal class that Keir Starmer, Lord Hermer and many of their learned friends themselves inhabit. And it's a blow that sees the long-term viability of the Government's immigration policy unravel, as councils up and down the country will seek to use this ruling to shut down their own troublesome migrant hotels. The difficulty for the Government is that Mr Justice Eyre's decision is a clean, fair, straightforward application of the law. He has ruled that, if planning permission exists for a hotel, it's a blatant breach of planning law to use the premises as a long-term asylum reception centre. Who'd have thought it? At bottom, it's no different from a convoy of travellers breaking planning law by parking caravans on a public recreation ground, or a farmer building a holiday camp on an arable field. The courts regularly issue stiff injunctions in cases like these, and rightly so. But Starmer and the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, were surprisingly complacent, imagining that somehow this didn't apply to their own activities. When the penny dropped at the last minute, they scrambled to influence the result, sending barrister Edward Brown KC to argue that the local authority 'should, in fact, have given some consideration to the wider public interest in this application'. In other words, that an injunction should not be allowed because it would make life very difficult for the Government. Counsel for the hotelier took much the same line, effectively ignoring the concerns of the local people who had been protesting outside The Bell ever since an Ethiopian asylum seeker lodging there was charged with sexual assault against a 14-year-old schoolgirl. 'Fears as to an increase of crime associated with asylum seekers or a danger to schools are common,' he said. 'But that does not make them well founded.' The hotelier's barrister was, of course, doing his job. Nevertheless, such legal arguments blithely take no notice of local problems caused by uncontrolled immigration and the small boats crisis, which has seen more than 50,000 undocumented illegal migrants crossing the Channel to Britain in the 13 months since Labour came to power. Until now, the Home Office has seemed content to dump the problem on councils such as Epping, where voters traditionally mistrust Labour. Now those voters have rightly dumped it back on the Government. What seriously spooks the Home Office is that Epping will not be a lone case. Across the kingdom we could now see multiple injunctions, forcing the Home Secretary in short order to relocate tens of thousands of asylum seekers currently in hotels – there are more than 32,000 according to figures released in March. And it is urgent: The High Court has given the Government only three weeks, until September 12, to vacate The Bell. The Government must act, and fast. One option might be to set up more dedicated reception centres, as in Germany and France. Another is to deter small-boat crossings by making it more difficult for illegal migrants to enter the black economy. The ball is firmly, and legally, in its court.
Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
How Bristol will use the box-office return of Louis Rees-Zammit to crack America
As Louis Rees-Zammit spoke to the media for the first time as a Bristol player at the club's state-of-the-art training centre on Tuesday, work was already well underway at the Bears on how best to benefit from his arrival. Rees-Zammit is a huge talent on and off the field. His rugby return from the NFL is good news for both the player and his new employers as the ambitious English club outfit looks to expand not only at home, but abroad. The USA, in particular, remains a target area for growth.
