Geddington bypass compensation claims top £1m

A total of 385 homeowners living near to the A43 link road have made a successful legal claim against the council because the value of their house has dropped as a result of the the busy road.

Homes in Geddington, Little Oakley, Little Stanion, Stanion, Rushton, Newton and Corby have all been affected and the council is now assessing the claims, currently worth £1.3m.

It is expected the monies will be paid out in the 2019-20 financial year.

The £35million link road was opened in May 2014 and bypasses Geddington and runs from the Barford Bridge roundabout on the A6003 – north-west of Kettering – to the A43 Stanion roundabout south-east of Corby.

The authority, which is the poorest county council in the country and is due to announce £60m of cuts next week, said the payments have been budgeted for since the road was built and were made up of funds from central government and also itself.

A spokesman for Northamptonshire County Council said: “The multi-million pound Corby Link Road has greatly improved transport links and helped boost the economy in the north of the county.

“As with any similar major project, compensation claims can be made by residents who believe their property has been reduced in value caused by road developments – and such claims are always expected and costed for as part of the construction budget.

“The council has received 385 claims in relation to the Land Compensation Act 1973 from residents located in Geddington, Little Oakley, Little Stanion, Stanion, Rushton, Newton and Corby which are currently being assessed.”  

The amount of the compensation being listed by the council has dropped from £2.4million in July. The authority says this is because a number of claims have been ruled out in the past month and some claim amounts have been reduced.

The link road was a long-running saga before it opened in May 2014. Talks began in 2001 and there were three years of disputes between Kettering and Corby councils about the route the road, which links the A6003 and the A43 would take.

The county authority bought up 52 plots of pasture and arable land near Little Oakley and Geddington in order to enable the link road to be built.

Sarah Ward, Local Democracy Reporting Service