Unable to call Webservice using SOAP proxy - hostname is null error

Issue

• When deploying the ESB project I get the following error when the ESB  tries to load the WSDL. It appears that the host never gets into the HTTP Method even though the correct URL is supplied

        Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: host parameter is null
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpConnection.<init>(HttpConnection.java:205)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpConnection.<init>(HttpConnection.java:154)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager$HttpConnectionWithReference.<init>(MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.java:1105)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager$ConnectionPool.createConnection(MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.java:741)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.doGetConnection(MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.java:469)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.getConnectionWithTimeout(MultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.java:394)
             at org.jboss.soa.esb.http.ESBMultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.getConnectionWithTimeout(ESBMultiThreadedHttpConnectionManager.java:74)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodDirector.executeMethod(HttpMethodDirector.java:152)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:396)
             at org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient.executeMethod(HttpClient.java:324)
             at org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.soap.RemoteWsdlLoader.load(RemoteWsdlLoader.java:90)
             at org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.soap.AbstractWsdlContractPublisher.getWsdl(AbstractWsdlContractPublisher.java:199)
             at org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.soap.proxy.SOAPProxyWsdlLoader$Puller.pull(SOAPProxyWsdlLoader.java:521)
             at org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.soap.proxy.SOAPProxyWsdlLoader.load(SOAPProxyWsdlLoader.java:157)
             at org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.soap.proxy.SOAPProxy.<init>(SOAPProxy.java:188)

My properties file contains the following

    configurators=AuthBASIC
    auth-username=kermit
    auth-password=thefrog
    authscope-host=localhost
    authscope-port=8080
    authscope-realm=JBossWS