Cambridge City Council wrongly believed flats had one bedroom

A council will have to spend an extra £640,000 on a plan to redevelop 1950s flats after finding some had more bedrooms than previously thought.

The 32 homes, on Fanshawe Road, in Cambridge, are set to be replaced by 93 "new sustainable homes" in a near £28m project announced in June.

But Cambridge City Council incorrectly believed five of the flats only had one bedroom, when they in fact had two.

The council said the discovery had led to a 2% increase in project costs.

According to city council papers, officers "identified an error in the leasehold data... where an incorrect mix of one and two-bedroom leasehold properties was indicated".

The city council said 10 of the soon-to-be-demolished existing flats had been sold under the Right to Buy and were to be "repurchased by the council to enable the scheme to go ahead".

"The council's records of the 10 sold flats, which were originally created when the flats were built, recorded some two-bedroom flats as having only one bedroom," it said.

"Once discussions with owners started, this was corrected and this generated a higher repurchase price."

Housing and scrutiny committee papers state this led to a "shortfall in the approved budget", which meant the overall budget needed to be adjusted to £28.57m.

The council said: "The impact of this adjustment is a 2% increase in the cost of the scheme and this was approved at the council's housing scrutiny committee at the end of September.

"It is planned to submit a planning application early in 2023 and work is ongoing with affected residents."

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