Project for 418 affordable homes to deliver 82

Opposition councillors at West Northamptonshire Council have called for an inquiry after it emerged three affordable housing schemes would produce less than a fifth of the homes they were intended to.

The council's cabinet meeting was told 82 of the 418 predicted affordable homes for the Avenue Campus, Roof Gardens and Belgrave House projects in Northampton would be built at one of the sites.

Reform UK's cabinet member for housing, Charlie Hastie, called it "reckless incompetence".

The projects were being delivered by Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH) but the unitary authority took over the running of all three sites last year under the then Conservative leadership.

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.

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 developer
• Roof 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 site
• Belgrave 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

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.