Northampton school reveals major plans to move into building on site of failed £13.7m council housing scheme

A former University of Northampton halls of residence could be turned into boarding accommodation for a nearby independent school after a failed council housing scheme at the site.

An application has been submitted to West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) seeking legal confirmation that Bassett-Lowke Hall on St George’s Avenue can be used as residential accommodation for students at the nearby Bosworth Independent School.

The application has been lodged by CATS Global Schools (CGS), the education group that runs Bosworth Independent School.

A CGS spokeswoman said:”CGS are prospective purchasers of Basset-Lowke Hall and are in contact with West Northamptonshire Council. The sale is dependent on CGS obtaining confirmation that it can use the building as residential accommodation associated to the Bosworth Independent School.”

CGS plans to use the building as boarding accommodation for Bosworth Independent School, which has around 320 students from more than 40 countries, aged between 11 and 20.

The spokeswoman said: "The school currently house around 186 students within six houses located on local streets. Three are located on St Georges Avenue and a further three on Barrack Road. CGS seek to bring all students into the single Bassett-Lowke Hall building which will bring benefits for the school community, ensure the welfare and security of pupils, standardise the quality of accommodation with benefits in terms of on-going care and maintenance of the estate.

"The six properties on Barrack Road and St. Georges Avenue would most likely be placed back into mainstream residential use following the move into Bassett-Lowke Hall which will increase the available housing stock.”

Planning documents say the building would be used only for accommodation linked to the school’s students.

The building forms part of the wider former Avenue Campus, which the council confirmed in January it was putting up for sale after spending £13.7 million on a housing project that later proved unviable.

The council has been marketing the cleared development land to private developers, while Bassett-Lowke Hall is being sold separately.

A target decision date of April 16 has been set.

The Avenue Campus site, covering around 9.18 acres, was bought by the Tory-run council in December 2020 with plans to build 170 affordable homes on it.

The Bassett-Lowke building was originally flagged to be refurbished whilst the other two areas of the Northampton Campus on St George’s Avenue would be demolished to make way for new housing. The intention was to maximise the council’s stock of affordable housing, however the scheme in its initial form was later deemed unviable by Northampton Partnership Homes, which is WNC’s housing provider. This happened while under Tory rule.

Labour councillor Bob Purser previously said: “This is a project that has suffered through the creation of WNC and the transfer between the two authorities.

“Surely if we’ve got a publicly owned piece of land historically and public funding to make social housing we can do it. It just frustrates me that we’ve got a system that seems to defeat us in doing what we want to do.

“I do want to be assured that at the end of this that we are going to end up with social housing because I’m really concerned. I really hope that the end result of this is not that we provide housing within the commercial sector that doesn’t meet the needs of people on our housing waiting list.”