Survey to understand North Northamptonshire’s shopping, leisure and town centre requirements

05 October 2022

Research into the shopping and leisure habits of people in North Northamptonshire will help shape future planning policies and strategies for town centres. 

North Northamptonshire Council has commissioned specialist consultants Nexus Planning to carry out a Retail Capacity Update, which is a study that will give a better understanding of how and where people like to shop, spend their leisure time and use their town centres.

As part of the study there will be a telephone survey which will involve about 1,300 households in the area over the next few weeks.

The survey should take approximately six or seven minutes to complete and will be conducted by NEMS Market Research. Most approaches will be made outside normal working hours to make sure working households can take part.

Producing strategic planning policies is essential, in fact it’s a statutory requirement for the council to do so and it’s vital we have the most up-to-date information possible to help inform this process and ensure town centres are supported to adapt and respond to changing trends in shopping, leisure and living, as well as helping them to level up and recover strongly from the pandemic.

Understanding how people spend their leisure time and how they like to shop will play a part of this so that future plans can be based on up-to-date, robust and reliable evidence.Cllr David Brackenbury, the Council’s Executive Member for Growth and Regeneration

In developing planning policies and strategies for town centres in North Northants we need current information and the best way of getting this is to ask people directly. While we would like all North Northants residents that are approached as part of the household survey to feel comfortable to respond, clearly they are under no obligation to do so, and we would like them to inform us if they have any concerns at all.Cllr Jason Smithers, Leader of the Council

No personal information will be collected other than age and gender. Any information provided will be used in statistical form only, so that it will not be possible for people to be identified from their answers.
 
The council welcomes people taking part in the survey and greatly appreciates all responses, but anyone contacted is under no obligation to take part. If anyone who receives a call has concerns at any point, they should hang up and report it to: [email protected].

If you would like to know more about the Study, then please contact the Planning Policy team at [email protected].