Friday brief: Scrutiny chair wants to look at purchases as West unitary plans to buy another town centre building
Plus lots of other news from around the county in what's been a busy news week
The chair of West Northants scrutiny committee says major regeneration projects and acquisitions being pursued by West Northamptonshire Council should be looked at closely by himself and colleagues.
The authority announced this week that it is planning to buy the former Corn Exchange in Northampton town centre as part of its vision to revamp the Greyfriars area of the town.
Yet as NN Journal reported recently, the authority has not costed out the scheme (which would no doubt cost tens of millions of pounds) and does not have the funding or private investment to carry out the development, despite spending significant sums on London based consultants to come up with designs.
The cabinet, which is led by Cllr Adam Brown, will make a decision on Tuesday whether to go ahead with the purchase, with the report suggesting the authority will incur borrowing to take on the cost.
The building has been listed at £1.9m.
The pending purchase comes after the authority helped Newcastle-based Stack Leisure to buy the former Peacock Place shopping centre, by putting £4.2m towards the purchase of what is planned to become a leisure hub. It also recently bought the St James bus depot site from shoe firm Churches and intends to build social housing on the site.
Cllr Ian McCord, an independent councillor who chairs the scrutiny committee, said he has had issues in the past with the former Northampton Borough Council’s buy up of local retail sites because ‘every single thing they bought had a problem with it’.
He said he will propose to the committee at their meeting next week that this purchase and other regeneration projects go on the agenda.
He said:
“It is not my sole decision to make, but I certainly think this should be a topic for the scrutiny committee. They [the council] are buying all these buildings and I would like to know how the jigsaw fits together.
“I would also like to know why the Market Square development went so over budget.”
The plan for Greyfriars has been out to consultation twice, with many in favour of giving it a revamp. Part of the site is the former bus station, a brutalist building dubbed the ‘mouth of hell’. The idea of the scheme is new housing as well as a new town centre park, anmpitheatre and retail space.
In a press release issued this week cabinet member for regeneration, Cllr Dan Lister said:
“We are passionate about transforming Northampton Town Centre into a vibrant hub where everyone across West Northamptonshire and beyond can shop, dine, and enjoy all that the area has to offer. The acquisition of the Corn Exchange is a pivotal step in the ambitious regeneration of the 14-acre Greyfriars site.
“This long-neglected property, vacant for over a decade, occupies a key spot overlooking the soon-to-be revitalised Market Square and backing directly onto the Greyfriars site. We’re excited to move forward with this purchase, bringing it into our bold vision for Greyfriars, and breathing new life into the building as a dynamic community venue that will once again serve and inspire the local community.”
News in brief:
Campaigners in Towcester are celebrating after councillors went against a recommendation of planning officers and refused a huge warehouse development this week.
Proposals for the 32-hectare DHL employment site on the northern edge of the town went to West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) strategic planning committee on Tuesday and the campaigners three year fight against the scheme was successful.
Around 100 people stood outside the meeting room chanting ‘No no to warehouse hell’ and held up banners as councillors and officers walked into the building.
Protester Julie Barrie told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) outside the meeting:
“[The warehouses] should be on the M1 where the others are and where they’ve got quick access.
“We should be having high-tech industries there like they have at Silverstone. We’re selling our kids short.
“They will have to bus people in so the local economy won’t benefit from workers coming in, we will just have the downside to it.”
Committee members were told by planning officers that the ‘residual harm’ of the DHL development was, in their view, outweighed by the significant economic benefits it would bring to the region. Documents suggest the employment space would create 1,300 jobs which would increase local wage generation by approximately £50 million per year.
Many of the complaints from objectors and echoed by councillors on the panel related to the “traffic chaos” that could arise from the development, the immense scale of the buildings next to the historic town and the demand, or lack thereof, for B8 employment in Towcester.
The panel voted to refuse the DHL plans 11 to one. They cited the size and scale of the application causing visual harm and the severe cumulative traffic impacts predicted by 2031 as reasons for refusal.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, Local Democracy Reporter
Kettering General Hospital will not have a new building by the end of this decade a hospital boss has announced.
There were already question marks over the timescale of the former Conservative government’s hospital rebuilding programme before Labour’s Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a review of the programme.
This week Polly Grimmett, director of strategy at the KGH NHS Foundation Trust, told the North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) Health Scrutiny Committee:
“It is worth noting that originally when the 40 new hospitals programme was announced the timeline for completing the schemes was 2030.
“I think I need to announce to this committee that Kettering, certainly not alone, in fact the vast majority of the schemes will not be complete by 2030.
“I can’t give you a timeline on when we’re expecting completion because that depends on the output of the national review.
“We are waiting to find out what impact, if any, that has on the timeline of our scheme and indeed on the budget that we’ll be allocated. The Kettering Trust Board remains totally committed to those plans.”
Whilst the review concludes, KGH has been given written confirmation to continue with its planning for the main scheme and for ‘early enabling works’ that will need to take place before the main section of the rebuild can start.
This includes installing new electrical infrastructure and building a new energy centre for the hospital, which is currently reliant on “very old” steam-based infrastructure.
The hospital boss also confirmed that works to support the RAAC roof in the Rockingham Wing and make it safe will be completed by the end of 2024, regardless of what comes out from the Government’s hospital programme review. This will mean that maternity services will be able to move back into the wing as the works will give the building a lifespan of ten years.
When asked what will happen if the Government review decides to retract funding, Ms Grimmett replied:
“There is of course a risk that that funding won’t materialise. It’s really important that Kettering hospital has a plan- we have a plan.”
Report by Nadia Lincoln
Wellingborough Town Council has decided it will try to continue to negotiate to buy the town’s pavilion for a nominal sum, after the unitary authority demanded £25,000 for the building.
The town council, which is without a permanent base, has plans to revamp the Swanspool pavilion and gardens, with a new cafe and leisure amenities, but says the plans could be stunted if the unitary insists on taking money from the town council for the asset. The town council is hoping to secure funds from national pots and the government to realise the renovation.
A second Labour Corby town councillor is under a suspension. As reported by the Northants Telegraph, Martyn Reuby, who is deputy council leader, has been suspended and at the town council meeting last week the authority agreed to approve a leave of absence for him for six months. NN Journal understands he also has health issues.
The town’s mayor Ross Armour, who was elected in May, resigned last month following his suspension and has now been replaced by Cllr Willie Colquhoun.
The suspensions are pending investigation and if cleared both councillors could return to local politics.
North Northamptonshire councillors voted to protect green space to the south of Desborough and terminate a contract signed over three years ago promising the land to a housing developer.
Yesterday the unitary council decided to put a stop to plans to sell its green space, next to Rothwell Road, to make way for hundreds of homes.
The land, which used to house the Hawthorns leisure centre before it was demolished, was first identified for a residential development in 2014. It received outline planning approval in 2017 and Bellway Homes entered a conditional contract to purchase the land and build the homes in 2021.
North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) were presented with the option to continue with the proposed sale or back out of it after it was revealed that part of the land could be classed as ‘public open space’ and therefore the authority could be found in breach as it didn’t advertise the development to the public properly.
Nine representations were made to the authority asking them to protect the land and keep it as green open space for residents. Campaign group Protect the Ise Valley, which has followed the application from the start, also strongly objected to selling the land to Bellway Homes.
Cllr David Howes, who is a ward member for Desborough and also sits on the executive panel, said:
“From my point of view there’s been significant time passed now and I think we live in a different world than when this was given outline consent.
“The town is actually already accepting large amounts of development. This is not simple nimbyism of not wanting to add additional housing.
“If you live at the south of Desborough this is the last bit of open space. This, for me, is this council’s and this executive’s opportunity to support residents.
“I think it sends a clear message that actually this council will put above and beyond two and a half million quid in capital receipts, will put residents first and will put the future of that town first when we can.”
The executive panel went against their officer’s recommendation and voted unanimously to terminate the contract and consider alternative options for the site.
As the land is in joint ownership the other landowners may bring forward a different scheme, but according to the NNC report it is likely that the whole development will no longer be viable.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
Can I ask what the Scrutiny Chair actually does, please?
I have a few very good friends who reliably inform me that the issue of the Sixfields land sale should have been scrutinised by this committee but wasn't.
Apparently, some 20 plus acres of publicly owned land, valued conservatively at over £18 million, was sold to the owners of Northampton Town Football Club (not the club itself) for just over £2Million.
That is a massive discrepancy in anybodies book.
Can someone please explain why it was allowed to happen without scrutiny?
It’s a great week for campaigners!
Both Save Towcester Now and Protect the Ise Valley should rightly be celebrating, they’ve put an incredible amount of work into their campaigns - massive congratulations to them both 👏👏👏