£300,000 for homes land is approved

A PLAN to spend up to £300,000 of taxpayers’ money on a consultant to help prepare and sell council land for housebuilding has been approved.

Wakefield Council wants to clean up the old Park Hill Colliery in Stanley, make it fit for development and then offer it to the private sector.

It’s envisaged the plan would become part of the sprawling City Fields estate on the eastern side of Wakefield, with 800 homes likely to be built on the land.

A trio of Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors had called the decision in to be scrutinised at a public meeting on Friday, after the £300,000 was signed off behind closed doors by the authority’s Labour leader, Denise Jeffery, on July 2.

But explaining the move, senior council officer Tom Stannard told the meeting that he was “very confident” the cost of the scheme would likely be covered by the eventual sale of the land. He said: “I think we can expect quite positive results in terms of interest in the site. We’ve every confidence that the land receipts the council will receive from this will offset the cost of this contract.”

Mr Stannard said the decision to budget £300,000 was supposed to have been made in public at a meeting of the council’s Cabinet.

But after lockdown forced the postponement of all council meetings for around three months, the local authority made the decision in private because of the need to get on with the scheme, he added.

It was explained that the scheme will be funded by a government grant, which would have been withdrawn if unspent before a specific deadline.