Inside WNC’s 12-hour Northampton Market Square showdown with contractors Stepnell – costing taxpayers £1 million and taking the project to £13.5 million

The Market Square redevelopment, initially budgeted at £8.4 million from the Government’s Future High Street Fund, was completed with new paving, water features, seating, enhanced landscaping, and 18 fixed stalls, as well as 19 pop-up tents, 26 additional pop-up stalls, and space for up to 10 food concession vehicles. Following a mediation settlement, the total project cost has now reached £13.5 million.

A report to full council this week, authored by Kevin Langley, head of major projects and regeneration at WNC, and Jamie Chalmers, regeneration manager at WNC, lays out for the first time the details of the mediation session that finally settled a year-long dispute over delays, extra costs and responsibility for overruns.

The council and Stepnell, the principal contractor, spent 12 hours in mediation on 20 August 2025, with the report noting that ‘both parties made settlement offers to reduce the significant gap based on their expert and legal advice’.

Stepnell had been seeking around £2.3 million above the original contract price, telling the council the project was delayed by 163 days and that “all the delay” was the council’s responsibility.

The council’s project manager accepted only 46 days, leaving a gulf of 117 days and months of back-and-forth.

The report adds: “Stepnell attributed all the delay to risks that were the responsibility of WNC as the employer.”

The council rejected large parts of Stepnell’s claim, saying the company “had not fully evidenced their claims and were not due any additional costs without this”.

But legal advice warned the council that taking the fight into adjudication or court would be “high-risk and expensive”.

The 12-hour mediation ended with both sides agreeing a set of Heads of Terms that council lawyers said were “within the thresholds for agreement”.

The extra funding now being sought – roughly £1 million – covers the settlement and the remaining costs of closing the project account.

The report cautions councillors that refusing to sign the settlement could see Stepnell restart proceedings, adding: “There will be higher legal and other professional costs for the Council if the matter is not settled.”

The report lists a string of issues that contributed to delays and ate into the budget, including:

• extensive archaeological digs

• handling and archiving historic finds

• repairs to a collapsed Victorian sewer

• diversion of gas, water, electric and BT services

• phased paving to keep the town centre open

These problems “added further strain on the budget… and contingency was eroded,” the report says.

WNC says the settlement and completion of remaining works will allow the project to be formally closed and enable a full “lessons learned” review to prevent similar issues on future schemes, which there are many. Early findings point to the need for better allowances for inflation, more intrusive site investigations, and reconsidering contract types for major public-realm projects.

Tory councillor Daniel Lister, who oversaw the Market Square redevelopment, recently defended the project and cited external factors impacting costs including blaming ‘pirates’. He said: “Eight million of that was secured from the Conservative government on the Future High Street Fund. There will be lessons learned, I'm sure, from the team who are very capable. It was the first scheme that they did.

“They did see cost pressures from COVID to Ukraine, even to pirates. They had many different challenges on that scheme. But what it has done now is it did kickstart the investment into Northampton.”

Independent councillor Ian McCord slammed the council over its mismanagement of the project and the costly, mishandled settlement, warning of a pattern of financial recklessness. He said: “I seem to have missed the apology from Dan [Cllr Lister] when he spoke. The fact of the matter remains that we started with a project that was promoted at £8.5 million and we managed to bring it in at £13.5 million.

“And yes, there might have been extenuating circumstances, but that's the long and the short of it. We've also heard earlier others saying, well, what were you trying to hide? Now, this has only got to this meeting tonight because I insisted on it.”

Labour’s Keith Holland-Delamere added: “With other previous projects, with redevelopment in a town centre, like housing developments, where you think, OK, Northampton, medieval town, what could be underneath the ground? When you read this report, you sometimes think, why didn't no one understand that there would be additional groundwork costs and those types of things?”