SCHEME BID TO RECRUIT TO CULT FIRMLY DENIED!

Source : 03/10/1991 Daventry Weekly Express

Claims that participation in a low cost housing scheme could be an attempt to induce people to join the Jesus Fellowship has been strongly denied.

A woman, of Weeden, who has worked to keep people away from the Fellowship, which she claims to be an undesirable group, found one of the telephone numbers for the Walter Segal Trust was for the firm Heritage Design, which is staffed by members of the Jesus Fellowship.

However, manager Steve Oakley strongly refuted such a suggestion.

'We are a business that is run by people who are in the Jesus Fellowship Church, but the Walter Segal Trust has nothing to do with the Jesus Army.'

'In these lean business times, we are a business which is investigating opportunities to improve business, and we may be involved in designing these homes, but in the role of a business and not as the Jesus Fellowship.'

'We are only trying to find out if there is any interest in the scheme, not to try and get people to join.'

The woman's concerns came after she read an article in last week's Daventry Express, encouraging council tenants and unemployed to build their own homes.

The woman said: 'One suspects that the main beneficiaries might turn out to be their own multi-million pound business empire, including Heritage Design and other companies, who are able to undercut other local traders.'

'However plausible this self build scheme might appear on the surface, and however urgent the need for low cost housing in Daventry, there is undoubted need for careful scrutiny of this particular enterprise.'

Heritage Design is currently discussing with Daventry District Council the possibility of building houses on low cost land.