Councils must now declare any costly schemes before North Northants unitary reorganisation

Any new big plans by Corby, Kettering, East Northants and Wellingborough councils to get rid of valuable assets ahead of unitary re-organisation must be run past the executive group heading up the move to new council creation.

The shadow executive of the North Northants unitary approved steps last Thursday (June 25) to ensure that any big finance decisions involving assets must be flagged up and given endorsement by the executive of ten councillors from across the councils, plus two from Northamptonshire County Council. The four councils will merge with Northamptonshrie County Council next Spring and form the new authority.

Recently Wellingborough Council transferred the Queen’s Hall in Wellingborough to the homeless charity Daylight. It has developed plans in the past year to spend £8m renovating the Redwell Leisure Centre.

In the previous financial year (2019-20) Corby Council signed off a £5m spending spree, which involved sprucing up shopping precincts across the town and also renovating some council buildings. East Northants Council has also taken out millions in borrowing to help pay for the new enterprise centre in Raunds. Kettering Council has not gone on a spending spree or committed to expensive projects but since the new unitary was announced it has bought up expensive investment properties including the RCI headquarters in the town.

Under this new ruling, the councils will now have to run any big projects past the executive, however crucially it does not look like the executive could prevent any council from ploughing ahead regardless if they really wanted to.

The report put before the executive said: “Existing councils are free to continue to run their affairs and make decisions without taking into account the impact upon the new unitary councils.

“With the new unitary councils coming into existence from 1 April 2021, resources, investments and assets from the predecessor councils will transfer to one or other of them at that date.

“It is important therefore that decisions and actions taken in the existing councils are made against the background of not adversely having an impact on the new unitary councils.

“There is already a spirit of collaboration and co-operation in managing resources, investments and assets amongst the existing councils, and it is felt that this would be enhanced by having a process that allows discussions to be held, and conclusions reached in a managed manner. “

When the new council is joined all finances of the four councils, plus a half of Northamptonsire County Council’s assets, will be pooled.

However there are concerns that Covid-19 could put a major spanner in the works as it looks likely to be very costly for councils and has impacted their income, particularly in the leisure centre.

Because of Covid, the new plan for Northants unitary is that the North and West unitaries will be a scaled back version of what was originally planned, with much of the transformation of services happening after April.

At the meeting the officer leading the changes Paul Helsby said there would be a major change in the provision of adult social services in the county before the new unitaries launch.

The expected cost of the reorganisation has however risen from £44m to £55m.

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