Northampton Town: Sixfields land deal vote delayed

West Northamptonshire Council's leader says a final decision on the land behind Sixfields stadium will be made in March

A decision on a deal that could see Northampton Town's East Stand finally completed has been delayed.

West Northamptonshire councillors were due to vote on accepting an offer from the club, or a rival bid, for land next to Sixfields Stadium.

The club had increased its offer on Monday to match the £2.05m tabled by rival bidders Cilldara.

Council leader Jonathan Nunn said the delay did not mean they were "kicking the can down the road".

The East Stand was supposed to be refurbished using a £10.25m loan from Northampton Borough Council, but work stalled in 2014 after contractors went unpaid.

An ongoing police inquiry has been looking into what happened to the loan, which seemingly went missing. Northampton Borough Council has since been replaced by West Northamptonshire Council in a reorganisation of local government in the county, while the football club changed ownership in 2015.

• Concerns raised over football club land deal

• Cobblers land deal faces delay over site valuation

• Northampton Town and the missing money

West Northants council officers initially recommended that the cabinet at the Conservative-run local authority accepted a £890,000 bid from County Developments (Northampton) Limited (CDNL), a company owned by the football club's chairman Kelvin Thomas and his business partner David Bower.

But in a letter sent to cabinet members, seen by the BBC, Warwickshire-based Cilldara Group Holdings said it "reserved the right" to seek a judicial review if the CDNL offer was accepted over its offer.

Last week, a full council meeting, convened to discuss the land disposal, heard concerns over the legality of accepting CDNL's lower bid, even though it included an undertaking to complete the stand.

The Cilladra proposal does not include this provision, but it did promise to get the deal done quickly and indemnify the council over any future legal action initiated by CDNL.

Northampton Town currently play in League Two - the fourth tier of English football

CDNL are the current leaseholders of the site in question, although the freehold is owned by West Northamptonshire Council, and there is a break clause allowing the council to terminate the lease in 2024.

A report to the cabinet stated that CDNL "would robustly challenge any decision to sell the land to another party and to terminate the Main Site Lease, if necessary through litigation" which would be "expensive and time consuming".

In a statement on Monday, Mr Thomas said "the football club feels that the original agreed and officer-recommended deal is still the club's preferred option and the club remains happy to proceed on this basis".

"However the club has listened and gone to great lengths to put forward an improved offer which more than satisfies all of the council's stated objectives." he said.

The cabinet voted to set a revised timetable for the sale of the land and to instruct a senior officer to conduct what is known as a "best consideration" assessment of the offers from Cilladra and CDNL.

"Best consideration" is a legal requirement to achieve the best value for council taxpayers when selling local authority land.

Mr Nunn said: "We are not quite there, but I don't think we're that far off.

"We'd love to get this concluded - we will only do it when it's absolutely right."

He said the issue would likely be concluded at the cabinet meeting on 8 March.

The land the stadium is on is owned by the council and is leased to the football club on a long-term basis. It is not part of the land deal currently being discussed.

Cilldara has been contacted by the BBC for comment.