Borough declines to comment amid report it will not take legal action over £12m project overspend

The Northamptonshire Telegraph reported that a council committee was set to decide to take no further action over the causes of a £12m overspend because it would be impossible for the council to attribute blame for what went wrong with the project without incurring potentially significant legal costs.

A council spokeswoman told Local Government Lawyer: “Whilst a legal process is still underway, the council will be making no further comment following last night’s meeting.”

Legal action was first mooted after the building, which should have cost £35m, came in instead at £47.5m when finished in 2010.

A 2013 audit report by KPMG - which also examined other major council development projects - said: “We have identified a significant number of failings in the council’s arrangements for managing four major and important capital regeneration projects.

“The governance arrangements the council put in place to manage the projects were ambiguous.”

It went on: “The council may have made decisions contrary to law and against its internal policies and procedures.”

Then Communities Secretary Eric Pickles imposed an improvement board on Corby partly as a result, which lasted until 2014.

The Cube serves as the council’s headquarters and also houses a library and theatres.

Mark Smulian