The council is buying 87 affordable homes at Landimore Park, Hardingstone. The cost sits in an exempt appendix. 61 are social rent, and not one is a one-bed.

West Northamptonshire Council has agreed to buy 87 affordable homes on a part-built estate in Hardingstone. It has not published what it is paying.

Cabinet took the decision on Tuesday 15 September. The homes are at Landimore Park, the Tilia Homes estate off Newport Pagnell Road, on the southern edge of Northampton. Sixty-one are to be let at social rent, which still depends on a planning change. The other 26 will be sold as shared ownership. (Decision details, Hardingstone Affordable Housing Opportunity)

The price is not in the public papers. It sits in “exempt Appendix A”, withheld under Paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, the paragraph covering the financial affairs of any particular person. (Cabinet report, Affordable Housing Acquisition, Hardingstone)

What the council is buying

Every one of the 87 is a house. There are no flats and no maisonettes. The report sets out the mix:

  • 20 two-bedroom houses for social rent
  • 36 three-bedroom houses for social rent
  • 5 four-bedroom houses for social rent
  • 7 two-bedroom houses for shared ownership
  • 14 three-bedroom houses for shared ownership
  • 5 four-bedroom houses for shared ownership

All of them meet the Nationally Described Space Standards. The 87 are the affordable quota on a 365-home phase, which works out at 24 per cent.

Why the council stepped in

Tilia Homes approached the council after failing to find a housing association to take the homes on. That is the part of this that is not local at all.

The 87 were already promised as affordable housing in a Section 106 agreement, the deal signed when planning permission was granted. Tilia had to deliver them. What it could not do was find a registered provider to buy and manage them. The report says Tilia marketed the scheme to housing associations repeatedly and listed it on the Homes England Clearing Service. Nobody bid.

Council officers checked that work and were satisfied by it. Without the council stepping in, the report says, the homes would have been the subject of an application to convert them to open market housing, and that application “would likely be successful”.

The scale of the problem nationally is set out in research the Home Builders Federation published on 1 October 2025, built from Freedom of Information responses from local authorities. It found:

  • about 900 completed Section 106 affordable homes sitting unsold for want of a buyer
  • around 8,500 more under construction or due to start within a year with no contract in place
  • more than 700 sites delayed or stalled in three years because no provider could be found

(Uncontracted Section 106 Affordable Homes, HBF)

An earlier phase of the same Hardingstone development did find a housing association. Stonewater is delivering 93 homes on Landimore Road, 65 for rent and 28 for shared ownership, on a programme running from August 2021 to July 2026. The wider Tilia scheme is 750 homes across three phases. (Stonewater, Hardingstone, Northampton)

The change that matters most is the rent

The Section 106 required 61 homes at affordable rent. The council’s offer was made on the condition that those 61 become social rent instead, and it needs planning consent to make that switch lawful.

The difference is money. Social rent is set by a government formula. The council’s own report puts it at “typically between 50% and 60% of market rent”. Affordable rent can run considerably higher. Housing strategy officers backed the change, and the report ties it to an aim of maximising social rented homes.

Shared ownership works differently again. A buyer purchases a share of between 10 and 75 per cent and pays rent on the rest, with the option of buying more later.

For comparison, Tilia is currently advertising open market homes at Landimore Park from £344,995, for a three-bedroom Alderley of 860 square feet. (Landimore Park, Tilia Homes)

Not one of them is a one-bedroom home

The report contains a table the press release does not mention. It shows the bed need recorded on the housing register for NN4, the postcode the development sits in. There were 76 households on it, and this is what they needed:

  • 1 bedroom: 22 households
  • 2 bedrooms: 28 households
  • 3 bedrooms: 21 households
  • 4 bedrooms: 5 households

The second largest group needs a one-bedroom home. The purchase contains none. It delivers 50 three-bedroom houses against 21 households in NN4 who need three bedrooms.

Bar chart comparing the 87 homes West Northamptonshire Council is buying at Landimore Park, Hardingstone, with the bed need on the NN4 housing register: 22 households need one bedroom against no one-bedroom homes, 28 need two bedrooms against 27 being built, 21 need three bedrooms against 50 being built, and 5 need four bedrooms against 10 being built
The register figures are a snapshot of one postcode, and the homes will be let across the district. The gap at the one-bedroom end is still the sharpest thing in the report.
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That is a fair comparison to make carefully. The register extract covers one postcode, while council homes are allocated across West Northamptonshire. But the sizes are fixed by a Section 106 signed years ago, not chosen now by the council. Stonewater’s earlier phase on the same estate did include one-bedroom homes: eight maisonettes and eight flats.

How it is being paid for, as far as the public record goes

The money comes from the Housing Revenue Account, the ring-fenced council landlord account, and specifically from an existing approved “New Build Pool” budget. Payments are staged across the build, from late spring 2027, and spread over the capital programme from 2026-27 to 2030-31.

The homes are not eligible for Homes England funding, because they already fall under existing Section 106 obligations. There is no government grant here.

The size of the pot is public even though the price is not. The council’s capital monitoring report, on the same agenda that night, puts New Build and Major Projects in the HRA capital programme at £157.687m across 2026-27 to 2030-31. That report also asked Cabinet to move £4.3m of forecast underspend from two acquisition budgets into the 2026-27 New Build Pool, to support “the delivery of potential new housing projects”. The report does not say that money is for Hardingstone. (Capital monitoring report, period 4)

Officers say the purchase produces a positive net present value across the 40-year HRA business plan. An independent Red Book valuation has not been done yet. It will follow, and the report says it will also drive what the rents on these homes are set at.

The deal is not finished

Cabinet did not sign a contract. It approved the use of the budget and delegated the rest to the Corporate Director of Place and Assets, in consultation with the cabinet member for housing, the chief finance officer and the monitoring officer.

Several things still have to happen:

  • Tilia must secure the consents that let the 61 rented homes be used lawfully as social rent
  • a Deed of Variation to the Section 106 agreement must be completed before exchange
  • due diligence and an independent valuation must be satisfactory
  • the affordable housing scheme is still with planning officers, so the site layout may change

The report is blunt about what happens if the planning change is refused. The council “will have incurred costs that cannot be recouped”.

The report also records that it was not considered by the Children, Education and Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and that no consultation was carried out because none was required.

What it means for you

Nothing is available soon. The first homes are due to be completed from winter 2027, and the last of them in 2031. If you need somewhere to live now, this is not it.

To be in line for one of the 61 social rent homes you need to be on the council’s housing register, and the rules for joining it changed this summer. Since 28 July 2026 new applicants complete a Housing Need Assessment form first. Full applications are only accepted from households that meet at least one of six criteria, including being homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days, an emergency medical need, or living somewhere overcrowded by two or more bedrooms.

The council is also moving everyone to a new portal called HomePoint. Live applicants were being invited from Wednesday 16 September. The old portal stays open until Wednesday 14 October 2026, and you can still bid for properties during the switch. If you are homeless or at risk of it, the Housing Options Team number is 0300 126 7000. (Changes to our housing register, WNC)

If you already have an application in, you do not need to fill in the new assessment form.

The 26 shared ownership homes will be marketed nearer completion, and the council says it will use an experienced shared ownership sales team.

Cllr Charlie Hastie, deputy leader and cabinet member for housing and communities, said the acquisition would “deliver a mix of social rent and shared ownership homes to support people at different stages of their housing journey”. (Council secures 87 affordable homes, WNC)

What the 87 homes cost remains unpublished. If the figure is released once contracts are exchanged, we will add it to this page.

More Northampton information

Sources