Calls for investigations and resignations
Concerns across all political parties about West Northamptonshire Council’s impending court hearing regarding the Sixfields land deal
By Sarah Ward
Councillors want investigations and possibly resignations if West Northamptonshire Council loses a legal challenge over its proposed sale of land to the town’s football club.
The authority is being challenged in the high court by Warwickshire-based developer Cilldara Ltd, which claims the way the council made the decision to sell the land at Sixfields to Northampton Town football club owners County Developments (Northampton) Ltd (CDNL) was unlawful.
The developer had made a higher offer of £3m for the approximately 20 acres of land, trumping the offer of £2m on the table from the sports club, but the larger sum was not even discussed at a meeting of the council’s ruling executive on March 8 last year when the authority decided to sell to CDNL.
The club has long leases on the land for sale and the report written by the council’s assistant director of assets Simon Bowers, recommended the sale to the football club in part to ‘regularise the complex ownership position that exists on site.’
Cilldara and WNC will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday at the high court in Birmingham as part of a judicial review hearing at which a judge will determine whether the Conservative run council acted unlawfully in its decision making.
If so, the March decision to sell will be null and void and will have to be made again.
With the high court case looming, there is concern amongst the ruling Conservative group.
A Tory councillor who did not want to be named for fear of sanctions said there has been an informal ban on speaking about the matter.
They said:
“It was not even discussed at our group meeting [held this week], which is concerning considering the severity of what could happen.
“There are a lot of people who don’t think it is a good deal still and there is a feeling that if the council were to lose the judicial review next week we would want to see some resignations; both of senior officers and the political leadership.
“If we do lose there will be a lot of questions and people will have a lot of explaining to do.”
Another councillor who is critical of the sale and the processes said they felt everything they have said on the matter has always been dismissed.
When we called Cllr Brian Sargent, who represents the Sixfields ward where the football club is located, he said:
“I keep out if it because it is too contentious.”
He said he was very neutral in the matter and the outcome was ‘in the lap of the gods’.
The land sale issue has turned very sour in Northampton with many different factions both within the council and among the football club. The football club gaining the land is seen by some as a crucial step in the long awaited East Stand development.
However the football club’s supporters trust declared publicly last year that it does not have faith in the club’s current owners Kelvin Thomas and David Bower to build the stand. Thomas, who bought the ailing club in 2015 (paying off £166,000 debt to HMRC), had promised to improve the ground at the League Two club but so far beyond computer graphics of what the stand could look like, work has not started.
There is also confusion about the value of the land. The council’s valuer Lambert Smith Hampton valued it at £820,000 which is £70,000 less than the football club, which has leases on the site, first offered for it. Offers then rose to as much as £3m.
And other issues that have muddied the water include council leader Cllr Jonathan Nunn publicly declaring he had had no dealings in the matter, only for Cilldara Ltd to contradict him and say they had had meetings with him dating back to 2020.
Nunn then told NN Journal he had meant he had had no dealings with Cilldara during the ‘recent bidding process.’
Leader of the Lib Dem Group Sally Beardsworth says her group is concerned about the issue and says there is a lack of clarity on the current situation.
She said:
“We have been privy to some of the discussions but there are other things that you don’t hear about.
“It feels as if it has run away from the council. There will be considerable costs.
“We need a full investigation of what happens if we lose the case by a neutral, independent organisation.
“It is hard to know what is going on behind the scenes. It has been a catalogue of disasters from day one and we are still dealing with it nine years later.
“Above all else, we have to get the best deal for the residents of Northamptonshire.”
Leader of the Labour opposition Wendy Randall, said:
“What we want is a real clear understanding of what has gone on because we feel communications with councillors has not been to our satisfaction.
“Councillors need to be prepared to face questions from members of the public. Either way we want a full understanding of how we got to that point. We really want to understand the land valuation as well and to investigate whether further valuations need to take place.
“We want best value for the council and for our residents.”
The dealings between the football club and councils (now the unitary formerly the borough) that run Northampton have cost the local taxpayers millions since 2014. On top of the missing millions loaned to the club in 2013, the former borough council spent millions trying to retrieve the money.
A report in 2019 by the borough council’s auditors KPMG said some of the actions taken by the council in loaning the money were ‘unlawful’.
Northamptonshire police also spent thousands of hours investigating the case. If the council loses the high court hearing this week it may have to pick up its own legal costs as well as the developer’s.
NN Journal contacted the authority for comment, but it declined to comment.
A 16-year-old Northampton schoolboy was murdered in Northampton yesterday afternoon. He was killed in the Kingsthorpe area of the town, with police called to the scene at the junction of Harborough Road and the Cock Hotel at around 3.35pm. He died shortly afterwards. Northants Police have arrested two men aged 49 and 21 and two teenagers aged 14 and 16 in connection with the murder.
The boy, who has not been named, is the third schoolboy to be killed on Northamptonshire’s streets in less than two years. Rayon Pennycook was murdered in Corby in May 2021 and three months later Dylan Holliday was killed in Wellingborough. Both died of stab wounds.
Here’s our editorial from last year about the county’s knife crime problem that is ending young lives.
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There have been ground improvements since new ownership at NTFC, the East Stand had no seats in it for a start when they took over! Rather disingenuous to claim no work has taken place.
In the past (when the original loan was made) my concerns were primarily about the integrity and honesty of the political leadership of the Borough Council. Ever since this particular twist to the story emerged my worry has shifted to doubting the competence and integrity of the WNC's paid officers. In general I am reluctant to criticise the paid staff for implementing the decisions of their political masters but the ease with which the most highly paid officers switch between local authorities after failure (and even into highly paid consultancies) makes me wonder who will take responsibility for this debacle? Well done to Councillors of all parties who continue to pursue this issue.