Southwark council has sacked a key community group from the troubled £1.5bn Elephant & Castle project in south London.
The move is another blow for the country's largest regeneration project – two months ago its master developer, Southwark Land Regeneration, failed to agree terms with the council to develop the scheme.

The Community Forum – five members of which sit on the project's council-led partnership board – was told last week that it will no longer receive regeneration funding from the government.

The funding was stopped after the forum refused to disclose its financial records for inspection and verification by council officers.

The forum was given £650,000 by Southwark council, nearly one-third of which was to be used to hire consultants to advise on housing and financial issues.

Paul Evans, the council's director of regeneration, said: "The council is no longer prepared to jeopardise the future of this programme and is acting decisively in the interests of the Elephant Link Partnership to ensure that valuable funds continue to be made available for this disadvantaged community."

Southwark intends to create a new position to take over the forum's role.

The council has gone to some of the forum's consultants directly to examine their reports and recommendations.