Schools' £90m land deal collapses
A controversial deal to sell 15 former school sites across Northampton to housing developer Barratt has collapsed.
Northamptonshire County Council announced that it planned to sell the former school sites to the developer for a rumored 90m in 2007.
But the scheme soon fell into controversy and delays, with both the credit crunch and residents' opposition to the development plans stalling it.
Political activist Dave Green is a member of the group Save Our Services, which stood candidates in the 2007 local elections to highlight opposition to the deal.
He said he believed the credit crunch meant the council now stood "no chance" of securing a new deal to sell the land for anything like 90 million.
He said: "There's no way people will be queuing up to buy this land now.
"So the council is not going to get the 90 million they expected and they can't say that won't cost the taxpayers, because as they're not going to get the money from Barratt it could well end up coming from cuts to services."
Barratt had plans to build about 1,500 houses across the 15 sites.
The money the firm paid for the land would have helped to pay for a number of school improvement programmes.
But the council's cabinet member for schools, Councillor Joan Kirkbride (Con, Bugbrooke) said the collapse of the deal would not put any of the improvement plans at risk.
She said: "Virtually all of the works on the 41 building projects taking place to transform schools in the town have been completed so people need to rest assured that this in no way disrupts these works."
The authority now plans to put the land back on the market
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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