Plans to turn Kettering’s old courthouse into flats have been approved by the North Northamptonshire Council.
The authority’s planning committee approved the plans on Wednesday for the building in Dryland Street in the town centre.
The applicant, Ms Thompson, wrote in planning papers that the former Kettering County Court building, located on Dryland Street, is ‘dilapidated’, boarded up and needs restoration.
North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) also said the building, which is currently disused, had been subject to vandalism over a number of decades.
Most of the property will be preserved, with only internal or rear construction works on the main 1939 building. A single-storey annexe building to the right however will be demolished and a three-storey extension rebuilt.
The finished apartment block would contain 12 two-bed and two three-bed flats. NNC said the seven parking spaces provided would be acceptable due to the flats being close to the town centre, with nearby bus links.
At a planning meeting discussing the application on Wednesday (September 10), Cllr James Towns said:
“It’s going to put the building back into use rather than it being at risk of potential break-ins, any vandalism, and squatting.
“I’m happy that it’s going to be residential use as well – we need more people in the town centre to improve the environment there and encourage more businesses with the service of local residents.”
The planning committee unanimously voted to approve the plans.
Papers state that the development is not financially viable to deliver any S106 agreements, which are usually put in place to offer contributions to the local community.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
News in brief
Taxi drivers in Daventry went on strike this week in response to new vehicle licensing requirements looming over them, which they say could destroy the trade.
The drivers gathered outside the town’s Taxi Licensing Office, at the Abbey Centre, on Thursday. Their main issue with West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) licensing policy is a requirement that states that all taxis operating in Daventry must be Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles (WAVs) from the start of next year.
They have claimed the council has offered them no consideration and that the decision has caused significant distress among drivers, posing serious financial and personal challenges due to the increased cost of purchasing these cars.
According to West Northants Council, it undertook pre-engagement with the taxi trade in 2022 and put the draft policy out to a 12-week consultation at the start of 2023, before its approval in October that year.
Sopiya Thanikasalam, who represents the Daventry Taxi Drivers’ Union, said:
“What about the drivers who’ve been working 20, 30 years here? How are we supposed to afford to buy a wheelchair accessible vehicle?
“We’d be forced to find another job. We’re there every day, we’re working for ourselves and our family, and we’re working for the public“[The council] will see it today, there won’t be taxis in town and maybe they will see how it will affect everyone.”
According to WNC’s Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Policy, all hackney carriage cabs across the region must be wheelchair accessible vehicles from January 1, 2026. There will be no grandfather rights for drivers, which would allow an exemption for those who already have a licensed car from having to purchase a WAV until their next replacement.
At present, the council will license both WAVs and non-wheelchair accessible vehicles and specific requirements for each of the former districts are in place until December 31, 2025.
Sopiya said that the transition must be introduced in a way that is “realistic, fair, and supportive of those whose livelihoods are directly affected” and that drivers hope their demonstration will prompt the council to re-engage with them.
She said:
“People are waiting to know what’s going to happen with their life.
“Our problem is, what’s the research showing the number of people who need wheelchair accessible vehicles in the county to need to change every single taxi?
“We want an answer, we want to know what made them make this decision.”
The drivers have been told a meeting would be held between the union and WNC in October.
West Northamptonshire Council has been contacted for comment.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
Around six families a week are turning to home education in North Northamptonshire, with council data suggesting there are no signs of the number slowing.
Councillors at the children, young person & education scrutiny committee meeting on Monday, heard that the number of children being taken out of school for elective home education (EHE) sat at 1,238 in June 2025, double what it was four years prior.
In England, education is compulsory, but attending a school is not. The rise in home-educated children in the region mirrors a national trend since the pandemic, though North Northants Council (NNC) has had consistently higher proportions than regional and national levels.
Head of inclusion at NNC, Annette Perrington, told members the reasons children were being taken out of school were complex, but largely fell into three groups.
She explained that around a third of families indicated that they wanted to home educate because of philosophical or religious reasons, and another third because they are not satisfied with schools.
Ms Perrington continued:
“The growing one is just under a third, where parents are saying that they are concerned that their child has some mental health or some wellbeing issues, which are giving them concerns about attending school.
“They choose to electively home educate rather than go through that challenge every day. Those are the young people we can absolutely support and that’s what we need to be looking at.”
Currently, parents don’t have to tell councils that they are home-educating and local authorities cannot intervene, unless they have reason to believe there are matters relating to harm or a suitable education is not being offered. The Children and Well-being Bill will seek to amend this through a mandatory register for EHE, which will also give the local authority additional powers.
The meeting also noted that there is a similar pattern with more children being subject to suspensions and exclusions, leading to increasing numbers of young people in alternative provision and those who are identified with special educational needs and disabilities.
In NNC, both suspensions and exclusions are higher than national or regional levels, with a secondary school suspension rate of 21.42 locally, compared to 15.26 nationally. The inclusions officer added that the most common reason is still listed as ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’.
She said:
“Some persistent disruptive behaviour may be because of an educational need, in which case you have to look at whether that behaviour is something a young person has a choice over.
“We have to look, and schools have to look and consider, is there any support to the child or to the family that could help before the very big decision to permanently exclude a child has taken place. That early intervention, unfortunately, is one of those aspects that is not a statutory function and often is the bit that goes first.”
The NNC report added that there is a challenge with the number of specialist places available, and family hubs not yet being fully in place, which is impacting some mainstream schools’ ability to meet complex needs.
“Place-planning takes a long time, building a school takes a long time, and I know that the council has supported some capital funding for this,” Ms Perrington said, “Where you have sufficiency of places, then you can see some of the positive impact that does come through.”
An expression of interest exercise is currently underway with mainstream settings to invite them to grow more specialist placements. NNC has marked an ambition to grow up to 800 new SEN unit places by 2032/33.
According to the authority, a plan to improve school attendance is also in development, which will look at upskilling school staff through SENCO networks and better partnerships with mental health support teams, CAMHS, speech and language therapy and other locally based youth mentoring services.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) has officially voted to push back its carbon-neutral targets by two decades, despite strong disapproval from opposition members.
The Reform UK Executive was advised by officers to shift back its zero emissions commitments from 2030 to 2050, coinciding with the UK government’s legally binding target.
A report highlighted that, despite slight reductions being made in recent years, the authority had not yet hit its annual carbon reduction trajectory of 2,000 tonnes per year.
Speaking at a meeting on Tuesday NNC Leader, Cllr Martin Griffiths, said it was the “right move for our community, our finances and our future”.
“Delaying the target doesn’t mean delaying action,” he added, “It means prioritising the most impactful projects first, like modernising council buildings and securing external funding.
“These allow us to reset the target and continue delivering the carbon management plan.”
Addressing the council chamber, leader of the local Green Party Cllr Emily Fedorowycz, said:
“Pushing our council’s net zero target from 2030 to 2050 will shape not just the years ahead, but decades to come. Choose to delay today and that damage cannot be undone. There is no reason to politicise climate change.
“In the scrutiny meeting last week, every party except Reform recognised the risks of moving these goalposts. Net zero is an opportunity for North Northants for lower bills, stronger businesses, better jobs, transport and investment in homes.
“The evidence is clear: councils with ambitious targets have secured millions of government funding. You each have a responsibility today to not do what is right by your party, but to do what is right by your people.”
She also highlighted the fact that 95 per cent of the authority’s Carbon Management Plan (CMP) was either already delivered or on track to be delivered by 2030 as reason to continue on the current path.
Joining the calls, local student Esther Hobbs pleaded with the Executive to do their part to preserve net zero. She was selected earlier this year to represent the UK at the ‘Your Europe, Your Say’ (YEYS) two-day conference in Brussels.
She said:
“This council’s choice will directly impact its residents’ homes, businesses and livelihoods. The climate crisis is one of the most important issues for young voters today.
“Net zero is not a petty hypothetical waste of money, it’s a safeguard to ensure that I, and your own children and grandchildren, grow up with the promise of a world to inherit.
“Delaying it is far more expensive and risks losing finance and investment that ambitious councils are already securing.”
However, Cllr Trevor Conway (Reform UK), who chaired the cross-party scrutiny review into the issue last week, pointed to their supported recommendation to delay the targets by two decades.
He added:
“It makes net zero logical sense to continue striving to achieve a 2030 date that is neither financially or realistically viable.”
The officers’ report highlighted that if the 2030 date remained in place, financial investment would need to ‘increase significantly’ to ensure emissions are reduced as much as possible to avoid the costly offsetting of its carbon footprint.
According to July 2025 estimates, if the council were to offset its emissions today, with no further work undertaken, it would cost around £837,000. Offsetting costs would then need to be paid annually, although the amount would change if operational emissions decreased.
Executive member for Assets, Waste and Environmental Services, Cllr Ken Harrington, also said there was “no point in trying to achieve unrealistic deadlines that will almost certainly end up costing council tax rises”. He added that the move would not abandon the council’s environmental responsibilities, but rather ensure that green initiatives were ‘financially and environmentally sound’.
A unanimous decision, which was solely in the hands of the administration’s Executive members, to delay the targets to 2050 was passed. Work will now commence to revise existing delivery dates of all CMP activities and regular updates will continue.
In a risk section of the report, NNC flagged concerns that not continuing to progress the CMP would leave the council exposed to further fluctuations in energy costs, ageing buildings which become more costly to run, technology, and vehicles.
It also added that it could potentially deter investment in the area, with clean energy industries likely to be targeted for significant public funds, and lead to ‘fragmentation of effort with climate actions’.
In a statement criticising the decision released after the meeting, deputy leader of the local Labour Group, Cllr David Baker, commented: “No one has suggested the 2030 date should never be reviewed. But to rip it up now, without any proper understanding of the consequences, smacks of a complete lack of transparency, integrity and accountability.”
Nadia Lincoln
Westminster Watch
Two Northants MPs have been given government roles in Keir Starmer’s reshuffle. Following the past week of chaos which saw deputy leader Angela Rayner resign for a stamp duty error and US Ambassador Peter Mandelson sacked for his past relationship with child abuser Jeffrey Epstein, the PM has moved around his cabinet and other posts. Northampton North MP Lucy Rigby, who was solicitor general, has now become economic secretary to the treasury and Kettering MP Rosie Wrighting has been given the post of a parliamentary private secretary in the health department.