Kettering job centre that never opened or helped one jobseeker 'closes'

A temporary job centre Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials say ‘opened’ in April 2021 has now been closed.

During its existence it didn’t welcome a single job-seeker through its doors after ‘issues’ delayed its use.

The DWP had signed a lease on the former Marks & Spencer building in High Street, Kettering, on April 8, 2021 and announced it had opened.

But shutters remained down – the only work created was for security guards patrolling the empty newly-refurbished offices in the converted store.

During the pandemic, an additional 194 temporary job centres and 13,500 temporary work coaches commissioned to help claimants.

But the ‘unprecedented demand’ for services never happened.

In a letter to Kettering MP Philip Hollobone the minister for social mobility, youth and progression, Mims Davies MP, confirmed on Wednesday, (February 8) that a get-out clause in the job centre’s lease had been triggered.

She said: “Our existing lease on the Kettering High Street temporary job centre is restrictive, only allowing DWP to share or sub-let with other government departments or direct service delivery partners for our activity.

“This would, for instance prevent the use as business incubator space, and the lease term would not be a meaningful length of time if investment was spent to re-configure for a varied purpose, or other business use. We therefore plan to make use of a lease break opportunity.

“The site has already been decommissioned, with colleagues and claimants now using Kettering JCP Derbyshire House Job Centre (in Lower Street).”

In some areas temporary centres opened during the pandemic offered better accommodation for staff and claimants with older buildings scrapped.

Mr Hollobone said: “The site was acquired by the DWP during the Covid pandemic to serve as an additional job centre post-pandemic.

"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 superb staff at the existing job centre have 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 the DWP has concluded that the additional job centre capacity has in the end not been required."

After a six-month delay, refurbishment of the 42,893 sq ft store started in mid-October 2021 when Worcestershire-based construction company Speller Metcalfe started ‘enabling’ works.

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

An FOI request to the DWP by this newspaper has revealed that rent and rates on the vast site had been paid for the building that has never been used.

When on the market in 2019, the unit was given a rateable value of £249,000 a year – an indication of the rent that would be payable.

The rates were given as £125,496, a total of £374,496 potentially paid out in one year (£31,208 a month) which over the period could be a total of over half a million pounds. The building has since been sold for £2,115,200 in July 2022.