Job Centre guarded but empty - mystery surrounds future of Kettering's former M&S store sold last year for £2,115,200

Questions have been raised by Kettering MP Philip Hollbone at a ministerial level concerning the future of a major Kettering High Street retail unit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) signed a lease on the former Marks & Spencer building in High Street, Kettering on April 8, 2021.

A temporary Job Centre officially ‘opened’ in April 2022 has never welcomed a single jobseeker through its doors after ‘issues’ delayed its use.

Mr Hollobone has pressed government colleagues for a response regarding the ‘non-use’ of the DWP’s office.

He said: “I have been concerned for some considerable time about the non-use of this site since it was acquired by the DWP. I wrote to the Employment Minister about the site on December 12 and spoke to him in person about it on December 19. I am waiting for a formal written response back from him."

Sold for £2,115,200 excluding VAT on August 12, 2022, 45-49 High Street was bought by London property investment company Raynes Park Properties Limited now renamed as Madadna UK Limited.

The DWP’s lease for the 42,893 sq ft store started in mid-October 2021 when construction company Speller Metcalfe began ‘enabling’ works to provide one of more than 100 centres to deal with predicted increases in demand.

Last year, an FOI revealed rent and rates on the vast site were being paid by the DWP.

In 2019, the unit, owned by property investors CF Sparks Kettering Limited was given a rateable value of £249,000 a year – an indication of the rent that would be payable – over the 17 months could be a total of well over half a million pounds.

Mr Hollobone said: "My own understanding is that the site was acquired by the DWP during the Covid pandemic to serve as an additional job centre post-pandemic. It was due to open on March 30, 2022. The thinking at the time was that many local people would lose their jobs as a result of the lockdowns and Covid restrictions and that additional job centre capacity would be required to help local people find new employment.

"In the event, the existing job centre has done fantastic work in matching local people with local job opportunities and local unemployment levels have remained below the national average, which in itself is at a 40-year low. As such it may be that the additional job centre capacity has in the end not been required. I also understand that there may well have been problems with the structure of the building, which may have made its refit into a job centre problematic."

The DWP refused to say how much money the refurbishment and shop fitting cost due to the information requested being commercially sensitive. The retail space was held on a full repairing and insuring lease until March 2027 - meaning any tenant would have to take on all of the costs for repairs and insurance until then.

It is also understood the unit has asbestos which would be costly for any developer to remove.

Meanwhile, G4S staff continue to guard the Meadow Road entrance to the back of the unit an array of CCTV cameras are trained on the doors.