Unused Earls Barton garage workshop to be sold by crime commissioner at a 'small loss'

A £3.3million garage workshop bought by Northamptonshire’s police, fire and crime commissioner which has been unused for more than two years will be sold at a “small loss”.

Stephen Mold said he is planning to buy a new site later this year to build another workshop to service and maintain Northamptonshire’s police and fire service’s vehicles.

Mr Mold’s office bought the unit in Earls Barton in February 2021 but it has only been used for scoping works.

The Baron Avenue site was put up for sale earlier this year for offers “in the region” of £3.5m.

Mr Mold said it was burgled after reports in April that it was empty.

He told Northamptonshire police, fire and crime panel: “I have to be careful about what I say because there are a number of contractual pieces; I have somebody interested in buying the building.

“As a consequence of bringing it up last time, to say that it was up for sale and empty, the local paper produced an article on it and subsequently it was burgled for a lot of its pipes, its toilets.

“I’m going to have to be careful going forward about what information we say here that puts our buildings at risk,” he added.

Last November, Mr Mold’s office said the price of planned refit work at the unit had soared from a planned £6m to £16m and that work would be stopped.

Mr Mold said the second garage workshop will be “ideal” for the services’ needs.

Of the costs revealed in a freedom of information request earlier this week, £660,000 paid in VAT will be claimed back.

Mr Mold said another £525,000 spent on designs will be used to help the design of the second workshop.

The office paid £187,500 in stamp duty for the Baron Avenue site.

Mr Mold added: “The reason we took the decision not to proceed with the original business case (for Baron Avenue) is that it was likely to cost less than £10m.

“As we came out of Covid and things like that…the cost shot through the roof.

“It is factually correct: as a result of stamp duty there will be a small loss on this building but it will not be, as a custodian of public money, of tens of millions of pounds.

“I probably saved something like £8m by not going ahead (at Baron Avenue). There’s nothing I can do about inflation and the cost of what it was it was going to be.

“We took a pragmatic decision, it wasn’t an easy decision.”

Mr Mold said he was “very excited” about the plan for the new workshop and that it will be affordable.