Housebuilder Lovell is continuing its legal battle with North East Derbyshire council to recover bid costs on a 拢39m social housing PFI contract that was scrapped.

The Village Homes consortium, which was the preferred bidder, and included Lovell and Carillion, will seek directions from the court next Friday. This will involve confirming the amount of money it is seeking to recover.

The summary claim, issued earlier this month, is thought to have been for more than 拢6m.

A lawyer acting for one of the claimants said the case would centre on arguments on European tendering law, contract law and the recovery of bid costs, which he said would be for a sizeable amount.

He said: 鈥淭his is not unlike a situation that can arise under the usual construction contract bidding process where you get the contractor and design team on a design-and-build contract to put in a lot of man hours and design services to work up a design. There comes a point when the recipient is obliged to pay something for it and then says 鈥榞ame over鈥�.鈥�

The local authority scrapped the repair and refurbishment PFI scheme after deciding that the repair work was not affordable.

It plans to carry out the refurbishment work in May next year but not under a PFI contract.