WNC admits tenants kicked out of Northampton council homes shouldn’t have been told they could return to new properties

WNC has apologised to former tenants of St Mary’s Court, in the former Spring Boroughs estate, who were wrongly told they could move straight back into new homes at Castle Street without rejoining the housing register after the estate was demolished in 2020.

The mix-up stems from a promise reportedly made by Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH), the council’s arms-length housing company, when tenants were moved out of the site for redevelopment in 2019.

In June, the Chronicle & Echo reported that the council had “not been able to clarify” how many residents were given letters promising they could return, or how many wanted to act on them.

The Chron recently spoke to residents forced to leave the Spring Boroughs estate who were told they would have first refusal on the new homes but now say the council is refusing to honour that.

Paige, a 32-year-old mum, said: “We didn’t really have a choice to move out. We were forced out. And now they’re telling us we can’t move back because we’ve got a roof over our heads. That was never the deal.

“It just feels like the council has gone back on everything they said. We were told we’d be able to go back, but now it’s like none of that happened. I feel completely conned.”

Aaron Shane, 31, said: “I was told I’d get first refusal if I wanted to go back. But I’ve had no contact. I only found out the homes were available when I saw them listed on the bidding site.

“We did everything they asked. We moved out when they needed us to. Now we’re not even being considered. People have had their lives turned upside down by this. It’s not just about housing need. It’s about what we were promised. They’ve changed the rules.”

WNC did not comment on the error when the Chron first reported on it in June, but has now publicly apologised for the first time.

Speaking to the Chron this week, Jodie Archer, assistant director for housing and communities at WNC, said: “If they were told … in 2019, that they could just move back, that’s not correct. That would have been at the time in 2019 … I don’t know who communicated that with them, and if that was what was communicated, that is inaccurate.”

Ms Archer said that while NPH was in charge at the time, the law has always required tenants to reapply through the council’s housing register.

She said: “They have to legally go via the register. In line with the tenancy standard that’s governed through the housing regulator, we have to operate a transparent allocation system … so anybody allocated a social housing or affordable home has to go through a choice-based letting.

“It’s a bureaucratic process, but that’s something we legally have to do, so apologies to anyone that was told they wouldn’t have to do that paperwork and join the register.”

At the time of the redevelopment, tenants of St Mary’s Court were issued legal notices, moved to other accommodation and given home loss payments.

Ms Archer said: “Any time we do any kind of demolition on any site where it's council tenure, we have to provide what's called a home loss payment and secure alternative accommodation that meets housing need.”

Of the original households displaced, WNC has now confirmed:

• 28 were unable to return as they required a one-bedroom property, which the Castle Street site does not provide.

• 12 are no longer council tenants.

• 18 were contacted but did not want to return.

• Four applied through the housing register.

Since then, more tenants have applied. Seven former tenants in total have now joined the housing register – two have already moved in and the remaining five are still going through the process, according to WNC.

The council says nobody has missed out on a home because of the need to reapply.

Ms Archer said: “None of the four have been prevented from getting a home. All it’s meant is they’ve got to go through an extra portal to do it.”

Once all former tenants have been contacted and no further eligible applicants identified, the remaining homes will be allocated to the general housing register, she added.

The Castle Street development is the first phase of a regeneration project originally approved in 2019 to replace the demolished Berkeley House and St Mary’s Court blocks with 126 new affordable homes – 102 flats and 24 houses – at a cost of £15.87 million.

Now, the second phase, known as Roof Gardens, has been drastically scaled back. Only 58 flats are planned, bringing the total across both phases to 82 homes – 44 fewer than promised. The rooftop gardens that gave the scheme its name have also been scrapped.

The total bill is now estimated at £23.1 million, nearly £7.2 million over the original budget. The council has already spent £1 million drawing up new designs to make the scheme “viable”.

One former St Mary’s Court tenant, who asked not to be named, says the seven-year wait to return to her community has been exhausting.

She said: “We did eventually get moved, well we got moved into the property that we wanted [in Castle Street]. I don't think they was going to do it, if I'm honest with you, until we made some noise about it. Thank you for your help. I don’t think this would have happened if I didn’t reach out to the Chronicle & Echo.”

Now, finally back in Castle Street after six to seven years, she calls the property “a lot better than where we just was” and says she feels “happy and grateful” to finally be home.

She has left WNC some advice going forward: “If a process like this was to ever go forward again, a review could be done every so often to update the existing tenants… rather than ignoring people for ages and not being able to give people answers.”