Safe and thriving places
North Northamptonshire is an area made up of many unique and distinctive towns and villages. It is a mix of rural and urban landscapes, blessed with picturesque countryside, attractive green space and served by good transport links. Respecting and strengthening the different identities of the towns, villages and rural communities in the area is a key priority.
We want to help town centres and villages respond to changing trends in shopping, leisure and living. We want to support our communities recover from the pandemic and help them level-up.
Finding new ways of bringing inward investment into the area and attracting tourism will be important. Key to improving the area will be supporting the creation of more high-quality jobs and better skills. This in turn will attract more high-quality employment and bring greater investment in the area.
Hand-in-hand with attracting investment, higher-quality employment and developing jobs and skills, will be the need to build more homes. But house building needs to meet better standards and supply needs to be able to meet demand. Road and transport infrastructure will need to be fit for purpose, with good connectivity both within and beyond North Northamptonshire.
For an area to be enjoyable and thriving, it is going to need to be safe. We want North Northamptonshire to be an area where crime and anti-social behaviour continually reduce. We want it to be a place where people feel safe and proud to call it their home.
Our priorities
- Strengthen the cultural identity of towns, villages and rural communities
- Help town centres and villages respond to changing trends
- Attract tourism, visitors and inward investment
- Working with local businesses and partners to support the creation of high-quality, better-skilled jobs
- Improve the standard of new and existing homes and ensure housing supply meets demand
- Tackle the causes of difficult issues leading to nuisance, crime and anti-social behaviour
- Maintain our highways infrastructure to keep people moving safely around North Northamptonshire.
- Enable people to travel across North Northamptonshire, and beyond
- Performance indicators and outcomes for:
- Growth and Regeneration
- Highways and Waste
- Assets and the Environment
- Regulatory Services
- Deprivation indices
- Crime data
- Progress in the delivery of our Service Plans
- Budget Performance of services
We will:
- Support our local communities to shape their localities through Neighbourhood Plans
- Review, maintain and enhance the quality of conservation areas.
- Drive up the design standards of new developments.
- Work with our partners to attract investment in our heritage assets.
- Diversify and support the wider rural economy.
We will:
- Promote local festivals, events and attractions working with local businesses, communities and other stakeholders.
- Launch and grow Chester House as a major visitor attraction.
- In partnership with the sector, develop a Visitor Economy Strategy for North Northamptonshire.
- Work with our partners to promote the area as a tourism destination.
- Support further investment to improve tourism facilities and assets and broaden the offer for families and other key target groups.
We will:
- Push for all new developments to have full fibre connectivity.
- Actively enforce to ensure new homes are built to consented standard.
- Work with house builders to encourage them to build above minimum standard.
- Actively manage the pipeline of market and affordable housing delivery to ensure the right homes are in the right places.
We will:
- Reimagine and redesign our key town centres with developed masterplans.
- Work to enhance the offer and environment, in our town centres and villages.
- Identify opportunities for public realm improvements.
- Seek to secure external funding to enable town centre regeneration projects.
- Review how our town and local centre assets could be utilised to support our communities and businesses to thrive.
We will:
- Co-design with key sectors to develop a Skills Strategy for the area.
- Work with education providers to provide a skilled local workforce.
- Foster an environment that successfully attracts business investment and job creation.
- Develop closer links between schools and local employers, including local skills fairs.
- Provide support for digital skills and innovation working with local businesses.
- Support key sectors such as construction and renewable energy.
- As part of the Oxford Cambridge Arc, attract high- quality employers and jobs to the area.
We will:
- Ensure we work with developers to design out crime in new developments.
- Raise awareness of local job opportunities and support measures to help people into employment.
- Work towards achieving Purple Flag status across all our towns.
- Work with communities to tackle anti-social behaviour and nuisance.
- Assist businesses in providing safe and healthy working environments for their employees and customers.
We will:
- Put in place a new highways contract focused on delivering value for money in maintaining and improving the highway network.
- Prioritise permanent repairs to roads to reduce repeat visits.
- Invest in our road network to ensure it is safe, and minimises inconvenience for all road users.
We will:
- Implement our Bus Strategy and actively work with bus operators to maintain and enhance the quality of bus services across North Northamptonshire and to neighbouring areas.
- Develop and implement long-term plans for road infrastructure to ensure the network can support sustainable growth.
- Work with partners to improve the connectivity, capacity and quality of rail services across the East Midlands and beyond.
Last updated 17 December 2021