Friday brief: Another defection to Reform UK at North Northants Council
Plus news from across Northamptonshire
A Conservative councillor has defected to Reform UK, bringing the group on North Northamptonshire Council up to three.
Cllr Kirk Harrison, who represents Irthlingborough, is now registered on the council’s website as a member of Nigel Farage’s party.
He told NN Journal this morning, he had been thinking of leaving for a number of years and thinks the apathy from councillors apparent in the authority is due to the cabinet style system.
He said:
“I was quite active when I first started. I have seen out my term and I think now is the right time to nail my colours to the mast.”
He said his thinks his new party will do well and the authority, which is currently Tory controlled and led by Cllr Jason Smithers, could be hung with no party in control after the elections.
In his opinion the way the authority operates should change to a committee system so more people can get involved.
He has a poor attendance record, but said he has had a serious illness over the past two years which has impacted on his ability to get to all meetings. He will be standing for election in Raunds, where he currently lives.
The Reform UK group on the authority is led by Cllr Martin Griffiths, the former Conservative leader of Wellingborough Borough Council. He left the tories a couple of years ago and sat as an independent until December. His fellow Wellingborough areas councillor Ken Harrington* also jumped from the Conservative ship.
Cllr Griffiths said he was pleased to welcome a new councillor to the group and that the party was doing well.
He said:
“It really is taking off. Our campaign is going phenomenally well. The response we are getting on the doorsteps is unbelievable and is honestly the best in all my 18 years in politics.”
Reform appears to be having a strong performance in Northants in the lead up to the local elections. Deputy leader and MP Richard Tice held a meeting at Sywell Aerodrome on Wednesday, which was sold out.
Cllr Griffiths who spoke at the meeting said there were lots of new faces at the conference and also members of the local business community. He said that unlike another Reform UK held in Cornwall this week, there were not any protests outside.
*The original version had incorrectly stated that Malcolm Waters had defected instead of Ken Harrington. He remains a Conservative, apologies for the error.
News in brief:
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has been told to pay a family more than £6,000 after failing to provide a primary school pupil who struggled to attend classes any alternative education for around six months.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found several faults in the way WNC handled a parent’s request for an education health and care (EHC) plan and alternative education for their daughter.
The girl, who was attending primary school at the time, was experiencing anxiety about attending lessons and had also been referred for an assessment for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Her parent, referred to by the Ombudsman as ‘Mrs S’, said she had been out of full-time education since April 2023 and only began a tuition package in February 2024, despite the authority being made aware she was refusing to attend.
The council has apologised to the family involved and said it remains ‘committed’ to making improvements to its SEND service.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
A campaign has been launched to consider pedestrianising Wellingboprough town centre. A petition was launched this week by a group of civic minded residents calling on a feasibility study to look at ways of reducing cars through the centre of the market town. They want the North unitary council to commission a study looking into the possible pedestrianisation of Sheep Street and Silver Street from Commercial Way to Oxford Street. They also want pedestrianisation of Cambridge Street, Market Street and Midland Road to be considered.
The reasons are to make the centre more attractive, reduce accidents and traffic pollution.
The petition states:
“The current through traffic, of cars, lorries and other motorised vehicles, along Sheep Street/Silver Street adds nothing to the town centre itself. This through traffic could use other routes around the town. Cambridge Street/ Market Street and Midland Road are often clogged with parked cars, which block access and safe spaces for pedestrians and disabled people
“The feasibility study should include looking at data for pollution levels (including small particles), traffic accidents and other injuries, comparisons with other town like Wellingborough that have already been pedestrianised and examine the possible effects on areas in and around the town centre - shops and takeaways, local residents -and how any adverse effects can themselves be mitigated.”
Sponsors of the petition include Wellingborough Extinction Rebellion, Wellingborough Eco Group, Wellingborough Green Party, Independent Socialist in Wellingborough, and labour’s Cllr Valarie Anslow and Cllr Andrew Scarborough.
The online petition can be signed here.
Space above two popular fast food restaurants in Northampton will be transformed into flats.
Part of the five-story building at 15-17 The Drapery, Northampton, above Taco Bell and KFC will be developed by Lionacre Properties Ltd.
The top four floors will contain six one-bedroom and one two-bed flats. The fast-food units on the ground floor will remain in place.
The council approved the application on February 17.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
A bus driver who hit and killed a grandmother on a pedestrian crossing in Northampton, was given a suspended jail sentence yesterday.
Brenda Hawes, 75, was on the way to her volunteering role at a charity shop when she was hit by the Stagecoach bus Timothy Pott was driving last Febuary.
Pott, 55, who had failed to stop at a red light was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment, suspended for 16 months after pleading guilty to causing death by dangerous driving at a hearing on January 9.
Pott, of Ecton Park Road in Northampton, was also disqualified from driving for five years and will have to sit an extended re-test before he will be allowed to get back behind the wheel. He was also ordered to complete 10 rehabilitation days and 240 hours of unpaid work.
I hope the pedestrianisation of central Wellingborough happens. In many towns there are increasing calls for a redress of balance in the use of space. Car drivers have long held sway as the most important road users, with everybody else having to cede space for their cars to sit unused for most of the day, breathe the polluted air their vehicles produce, tolerate the noise their engines make and get out of their way or get run over. Our public transport is blocked by the jams they cause and our cyclists are unsettled, and sometimes unseated by their too-close overtaking. They will howl at the "injustice" of a redress of balance, but it's time to recognize that they are no more special, and deserve no more privilege, than anybody else.