Ashford council is to re-tender a PFI project for the regeneration of its 1300-home Stanhope Estate, a month after it dropped its initial PFI partner.

The Kent council dropped its Partners consortium from the project amid reports of rising costs, team conflict and government intervention. United House, a member of the Partners consortium, said it would not be rebidding. Jeffrey Adams, United House’s group chief executive, said: “We worked very hard to make it work first time round. I always thought Ashford was too small for a PFI scheme; to me it was best suited to a straight regeneration scheme.”

The council has now drawn up its own draft development brief and aims to have outline planning permission in the autumn. It has also decided what homes should be demolished.

Tracey Kerly, director of housing at Ashford council, said: “We want to be in the driving seat on costs. This will give us more security, and we think the market will prefer it because it gives them more certainty.”

The council has retained HTA Architects, who it worked with prior to the first deal, as designer. “From the residents’ perspective, continuing to work with the architect and getting the draft development brief in place gives them some security about what will happen,” said Kerly.

Ben Derbyshire, managing director of HTA Architects, said: “We’re going back to first principles to test the vision originally agreed between the key stakeholders.”

Under the estate regeneration, two apartment blocks have been demolished. The remaining five blocks will also be demolished, but the houses will be retained and new homes built alongside them.