A council’s housing company will create “positive outcomes” totalling nearly £1million, bosses have said.
A report before South Kesteven District Council’s companies committee has revealed all of the 25 homes on the Wherry’s Lane build had either been sold or were in the process of being sold.
Documents leaked unintentionally by the council in October had shown an expected loss of £132,000 on the development, the first project carried out by SKDC’s company.
The build by the arms length private company includes 20 apartments and five townhouses.
In the report next Tuesday, Gravitas Housing director and chief finance officer at SKDC Richard Wyles said: “It can be seen that all properties have either been sold or are in the process of being sold and there are no properties now available for sale.
“It is anticipated that all sale receipts will be received by no later than mid May 2022.”
Councillors will be shown an updated profit and loss account however, unlike the one in October, this has not been published publicly and will be kept as an exempt document.
“The longer [than anticipated] sale period has had an adverse financial impact on the overall project as ongoing holding costs have been incurred,” said Mr Wyles’ report.
“However the marketing campaign was severely affected by the national lockdown that was introduced shortly after the units became available for sale.”
Among the list of positive outcomes there are:
£504,000 Section 106 payments to be used towards funding affordable housing nearby
£174,000 in interest rates on a commercial loan between the council and Gravitas
£107,000 in charges from the council to Gravitas to reimburse for officer time spent on the project
An estimated £6,000 council tax income since 2020/21
£188,000 of New Homes Bonus income to the council
The project had originally hoped to budget for a £243,000 profit from the built meaning the £132,000 loss projected in October was £375,000 out.
Opposition councillors, having seen the budget projections – which included more than £397,000 extra spending on building and selling – have previously called the project a “shambles” and criticised it for building “unaffordable” private housing rather than council houses.
They have accused the council of wasting time and effort on the build.
However, bosses stated the aim of the build was to develop where other private companies and developers wouldn’t – delivering towards housing targets and stimulating growth in the district.
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Nominations are open for schools and education settings to be recognised in the 2022 Lincolnshire Education Excellence Awards.
The event is organised by Stonebow Media, publishers of The Lincolnite, to celebrate the best school and teachers in Greater Lincolnshire.
The headline sponsors making the awards possible are Lincoln College Group.
Twelve categories are now open for nominations. The deadline for nominations is June 3, with a judging lunch scheduled for June 7.
Nominations are open from parents, carers, friends, families or education settings themselves, so if you know someone who deserving of winning now is the time to vote!
The awards ceremony will be held at the Engine Shed on July 7.
It’s been a week since the controversial statue of Margaret Thatcher was installed in Grantham’s St Peter’s Hill.
The £300,000 bronze monument immediately caused a stir and debate from both supporters and opponents of the first female Prime Minister of the UK.
Within hours of its 7am installation last Sunday, it had already been egged by a man later revealed to be 59-year-old Jeremy Webster, a deputy director at the Attenborough Arts Centre at the University of Leicester.
Mr Webster’s mother-in-law recently described his actions as “childish”.
Quoted in the MailOnline she said: “Margaret Thatcher lasted a long time in power. She was a trailblazer as the first woman prime minister and she had such energy, even though I know she slept very little.
“I’m very surprised to hear about all of this [egg throwing]. I’m going to have to call my daughter. I wouldn’t have thought Jeremy would be the sort of person to do this. It seems very childish to me – he has a responsible job.”
There have been reports of other antisocial behaviour taking place including people urinating up the statue, but investigations into these are yet to be confirmed by officials.
Away from the statue itself, others took to social media to react to the new monument.
Twitterer @BolsoverBeast thought Mr Webster’s actions should be expanded as a way to… get more people involved?
I think it would be a good idea to put Thatcher’s statue on a low loader and tow it slowly around the country so that we all have a chance to throw something at it. pic.twitter.com/uftMqr0LgR
— Chloe Schlosberg (@ChloeSchlosberg) May 19, 2022
Some called back to the fate of other statues
@Irritatedllama called back to the fate of slave trader Edward Colston who was thrown into the Bristol Harby in June 2020.
It's absolutely disgraceful that people are throwing eggs at the Margaret Thatcher statue in Grantham! We need to deploy a taskforce to give it jolly good wash!#Granthampic.twitter.com/RKftKUls4u
It wasn’t long before a parody account of the statue was set up on Twitter – nor before “she” was interacting with other parody accounts.
It was awful. I could see almost all of Grantham
— That Statue of Thatcher (@thatcher_statue) May 18, 2022
A… positive view?
There were supporters of the statue, however, Darren Grimes from GBNews was one of the few popular posts calling on people not to “give in to threats of petty vandalism”. He later posted the statue should be in parliament – where it was previously rejected from.
I honestly think Margaret Thatcher would have found this first round of petty vandalism of her statue to be utterly hilarious.
The statue looks absolutely glorious.
Almost a decade on from her passing, she’s still winding them up!
Some, like @Jonnyhibberd were more measured in their response.
I don't see a problem with a Thatcher statue and I also don't see a problem with people throwing eggs at it. Thatcher is an important part of our history, and so is what a lot of people thought about her.
— Jonathan Hibberd 🇺🇦 (@Jonnyhibberd) May 18, 2022
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