'It's a major scandal'
‘Wreckless incompetence’ levelled at housing company and public inquiry calls, as three Northampton failed social housing schemes cost taxpayers millions
By Sarah Ward
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There have been calls for a public enquiry into three failed social housing schemes in Northampton which have seen millions wasted and just 24 homes built at the cost of £25m.
The scale of the mishandling of the housing schemes at the former university campus, Belgrave House in the town centre and Roof Gardens in Spring Boroughs was laid fully bare last night as a series of reports went before the new Reform UK cabinet of West Northamptonshire Council.
Of 418 social houses that were planned, only two dozen have been built and many more millions will need to be spent to try to recover the losses. The authority has also had to hand £17.3m in grants back to the government’s housing agency Homes England. So far £25m has been spent on the schemes.
The new administration plus the Labour and Liberal Democrat administrations were scathing of the housing schemes which were all signed off by the former Tory-run Northampton Borough Council and then taken forward by the WNC Conservative administration, which was led until last year by disgraced leader Jonathan Nunn.
All three schemes were managed by the council’s arms length housing organisation Northampton Partnership Homes (NPH), which suffered a highly critical inspection by the government last year, and will now be taken back in house, with Reform’s cabinet deciding last night to do so over with a phased approach over the next two years.
Independent councillor Ian McCord, praised the new Reform UK cabinet member for housing Cllr Charlie Hastie for gripping the situation quickly after ‘being dropped in it from a great height’. Speaking after a report about taking NPH back into direct council control, he said:
“We should have a recommendation about some kind of inquiry into NPH and how we ended up with the slow moving train wreck that it has become.
“I want to know ‘were we lied to? Has this council been misled? What has the board done? What did the portfolio holders do?’ These are questions that I want answered and I dont level any accusations, I just want to know what was going on and who was asleep at the wheel, because now is a time for them to waken up.”
Labour’s group leader Sally Keeble, a former Northampton MP and housing minister was damning in her assessment.
She said:
“This is a 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 I think there are some serious, serious questions to be answered about how and when these decisions were taken.
“But I also think it is wrong to just heap all the blame onto Northampton Partnership Homes. I completely understand all the mistakes that have been made by them, but they were paid a management fee by West Northamptonshire Council to manage the housing stock and do the work for them. And you don’t normally pay someone to look after your property and then stand by while they burn it down, and that’s what has actually happened here.”
And Liberal Democrat leader Jonathan Harris said that while the former bankrupt county council had always been seen as the ‘basket case’ in the county, evidence was now coming forward that Northampton Borough Council was ‘potentially worse’.
“This entire issue is one unwholly costly mess. The council has had representation on the NPH board, both councillors and officers for the entirety of its existence. I know there is a view that not all of the information was provided, but it also has to be said that not enough probing questions were asked.
“I echo Cllr McCord’s comments about the suggestion of a full review or inquiry of some description, but I agree with the monitoring officer that right now we’ve got more pressing issues, which is to deal with the matters we have in hand, but it does smell of gross incompetence and I think this council seriously needs once we’ve resolved matters to take a step back and explore what really has gone on here.”
The mess will now have to be sorted out by the Reform administration and Cllr Hastie said the stalled housing schemes would now be managed by the local authority. He said they had all faced serious viability issues due to ‘technical, financial and regulatory’ issues.
He said the relationship between the council and NPH had been ‘very arms length’ and in 2023 it became evident that rising construction costs, poor internal governance at NHP, design and compliancy shortcomings and lack of awareness of Homes England’s grant guidelines all combined to make the schemes untenable.
He said:
“The key issues are the NPH performance concerns, but politely put, it is lack of skills, commercial acumen and poor transparency. This is ambitions being mixed up with abilities, to the point of almost wreckless incompetence.”
He also said he did not think the issues at NPH had come about maliciously, but rather due to a hope that things would turn around.
[Former WNC leader Adam Brown was the cabinet member for housing for a number of years. The council’s deputy chief executive Rebecca Purnell was also on the NPH board along with Labour councillor Bob Purser and Conservatives Andy Kilbride and Nigel Hinch. Mike Kay was the chief executive of NPH from its creation in 2015 til his retirement in 2023. He was replaced by Steve Feast.]
Avenue Campus
NN Journal first wrote about the Avenue Campus back in 2021, as we attempted to find out how much the authority had paid the university to buy its former campus. We also asked the council how much the new scheme would cost and how much grant they would be applying for from Homes England to help fund the building of 170 new social homes.
The authority stonewalled us all on all questions, even refusing to say how much the bid was for.
Cllr Phil Larratt, who was then cabinet member for housing, told us there were no issues and said at the time:
“From what I have seen I’m comfortable with it, no problem at all.
“We are desperately short of affordable housing in Northampton. The financials have all been gone into. They have to stack up to provide value for money for the HRA. We will be doing our due diligence on it. It is going to have to be a scheme that stacks up.
“This is definitely not being done in a rushed way in advance of the unitary. The fact is, it is something that came on the market and it’s a case of having to respond to the market.”
This week for the first time it has been revealed the authority paid £8m for the land and buildings. A further £3m was spent on demolitions and £2.7m spent on professional fees and
However just why it was unviable and what the shortfall in costs were, have not been disclosed by the authority. It was decided in 2023 that the scheme would not work out.
£10.2m has had to be repaid to the government due to the viability issues. And now instead of social housing, houses for the general market will be built, as the authority tries to recoup the money it has spent. There was not enough electricity in the grid to service the development and so a further £4.8m will need to be spent on connecting utilities to the remaining Bassett Lowke Hall, which is due to be sold off.
Cllr Hastie said the losses could be as much as £9m.
Belgrave House
Former office block Belgrave House, which was supposed to have provided 122 key worker homes, will now be knocked down. As has been the case with a number of the former borough council’s land deals, there is a complex ownership arrangement on the building, as the council signed a 970 lease on the final day of the authority existence, in 2021.
£3.6m has been spent so far on the scheme. And £87,000 a year is spent on looking after the site.
Cllr Hastie said the scheme had been affected by poor design, high retrofit costs and restrictive lease conditions.
Roof Gardens
So far just 24 of the originally planned 126 affordable homes on the site in Spring Boroughs have been built, but are unoccupied. The former housing blocks of Berkeley House and St Mary’s Court which contained 82 homes were knocked down in 2020 and residents moved elsewhere.
Another 58 homes will be built at a cost of a further £23.1m which will come from the housing revenue account - a fund which is made up of rents from the council’s housing tenants. It will be paid back over 50 years.
The development was due to cost £15m and will now cost double that for many less homes, with £8m already spent.
What happens now?
As part of plans to move the 11,500 homes managed by NPH back into council control, tenants will now be surveyed. Cllr Hastie said the safety of the residents had to come first.
He said in a statement issued by the council today:
“This decision is about ensuring that our residents receive the best possible housing service – one that is safe, responsive, and accountable. By bringing this provision back in-house, we can simplify governance, strengthen compliance, and have greater control over quality while also providing tenants with the best value for money.
“There are significant opportunities to join-up services across West Northants to ensure the coordinated delivery of strategic objectives and to optimise outcomes for residents. Most importantly, we will be working closely with tenants and leaseholders to make sure their voices help shape the future of housing in West Northants.”
The staff at NPH will move over to WNC employment. Cllr Hastie said he wanted to assure staff ‘this is not a witch hunt’. He said WNC officers were up to taking over NPH.
But Labour’s Cllr Keeble is concerned about the transition of housing back into the council.
She said:
“Changing the management arrangements for NPH only scratches at the surface of the problems. It shuffles around the desks. The council has been paying NPH millions to manage its housing stock.
“There needs to be a fresh appraisal of housing options to ensure that former NPH housing tenants can have secure tenancies in decent homes.
“The new Reform administration must come forward with more substantial plans that will address the scale of the financial and management crisis in West Northants social housing.
“The situation was not of their making, but if falls to them to find a solution. Meanwhile, it’s people in the hard-pressed parts of Northampton, including my own ward Dallington Spencer, who face the greatest hardship.”
As for the housing projects, work will begin to do necessary improvements at the Avenue Campus to allow sales; and a new design for Roof Gardens will commence. Belgrave House is part of the English Cities Fund scheme to regenerate Greyfrairs, but as NN Journal has often reported, the overall costs of the scheme and how they will be paid for have not been disclosed to the media or public. English Cities Fund has also never been questioned by any councillors from the opposition or undergone public scrutiny.
Excuse my reply if it appears naive. I would say 'simple' does not mean naive.
Once upon a time such matters would have been referred to the District Auditor for investigation and councillors found to have failed in their fiduciary duty to ratepayers could face penalties including being struck off and barred from future public office. But that was abolished in 2014.
There are still active councillors who were involved in the events leading to the County Council 'entering' special measures and the Borough Council appearing to 'lose' £10m in the Sixfields scandal. Since 2014, various other councils have been brought to their knees by reckless (at least) and very dubious (not so least) investment 'schemes'.
It is really is time for central government to clean the stables - not by abolition of local government - but by giving local electors the tools to ensure the incompetent and corrupt are brought to book . Those folk currently posturing to imitate Mr Musk's antics in the US should realise the issue is not one of magic wands, but of ethics, standards, strict controls and proper punishments.
I think it needs saying too - the Police should become more proactive where there is prima facie evidence of corrupt behaviour and maladminstration by local government officers, and "arms-length agencies". It's obvious that too many public servants now regard their means of employment as no more than Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket to the Gravy Train.
Well Done again ....NI......now go for accountability !