North East Derbyshire District Council’s ruling Labour group have approved £8,663m in borrowings to loan to the Northwood Group – a joint venture company set up to provide almost 200 houses at the Ankerbold Road site in Tupton – only 39 of which will be classed as affordable homes.
The loan is made up of £0.963m in shareholder investment; with a further £7.7m on commercial terms to facilitate the development of Ankerbold Road.
The £8.663m in borrowing exceeded the Authorised Borrowing Limit set within the authority’s
Operational Boundary and Capital Financing Requirements and as such the Council was required to update that policy upon agreeing to borrow the amount.
The decision was taken with the public excluded at the Council meeting held on 19th Febuary 2018.
Lib Dem Councillor, David Hancock (Tupton Ward) commented:
“The Council is borrowing heavily to invest in this project, which, while it has the potential to be very successful, is high risk gamble with a company that has no trading history.
The development site has insufficient infrastructure and will consist primarily of executive homes, which would not provide the quantity of affordable housing needed for Tupton residents to get on the housing ladder.”
“This is the Labour Party gambling with tax payers money on a vanity project that is not fit for purpose and what’s more, they didn’t even have the bottle to discuss this in the public domain after my repeated requests for it to not go into confidential.”
“I am even more disappointed that Tupton Labour Councillor, Stephen Peters voted along with the rest of his party to support this project, which will see services stretched to breaking point in Tupton.”
You can join the Liberal Democrats to fight for a better North East Derbyshire by visiting www.libdems,org.uk/join