Enfield Council has come under fire after a cabinet report revealed extra cash will have to be pumped into a delayed housing scheme.

Conservative leader Cllr Joanne Laban branded the situation a “disgrace” and called for people to be sacked after the report revealed the small sites housebuilding scheme would be delayed for several months.

The report states “discrepancies in designs” priced by contractor AMCM have led to cost overruns and homes would not be finished until June, instead of being completed on a phased basis in early 2019.

It comes on top of earlier delays to the small sites scheme that meant some half-completed homes had to be pulled down due to weather damage.

Cllr Laban said “The fact that Enfield’s Labour Council requires a vast amount of additional money for this scheme is a disgrace.

“Enfield Council finds itself nearly a decade on from when proposals were first discussed for these sites with the scheme uncompleted and over budget.

“How can Enfield Council deliver a 10,000-home project at Meridian Water when it cannot even build homes on the smallest of developments on time and on budget?

“Heads should roll over this because the tax payers of Enfield should not be expected to have to bail out this incompetent Labour council.”

Begun in 2012, the council-led small sites scheme – which was split into two phases – aims to provide 140 homes, including affordable rent and shared ownership properties.

Phase two is now complete, but the delivery of phase one was held up following the collapse of a key contractor in 2015.

The council renegotiated the contracts in 2017 and pumped extra money into the scheme.

Enfield Independent: Conservative leader Cllr Joanne LabanConservative leader Cllr Joanne Laban

But the report says “discrepancies in the designs priced by AMCM” – one of the new contractors – emerged in 2018 and have led to “cost overruns”.

It adds that “unforeseen problems were encountered with mould arising on plasterboards” and delivery will have to be pushed back from early 2019 to June.

The report states that delaying the scheme further could lead to partially built homes suffering weather damage.

Sarah Cary, executive director of place at Enfield Council, told the cabinet meeting: “The council is committed to delivering affordable homes and we have done that through a number of ways, one of which is small sites development.

“Phase two completed this year with 13 homes, all sold to local people. Phase one consists of 94 homes across seven sites, and half of those are affordable rent and shared ownership.

“The contractor responsible for those seven sites went into administration in 2015, and in 2017 we renegotiated a different contractor to complete them.

“The new contractors have claimed further costs arising from issues from before they took over the site. We are still negotiating but we will need authorisation to complete the new homes.

“This still provides a positive contribution to the Housing Revenue Account and we expect all homes to be completed this year.”

Council leader Cllr Nesil Caliskan said: “The report sets out a direction to get phase one back on track and to ensure that overall there is a positive contribution to the HRA.”