Friday brief: Rushton fire that killed three, not suspicious investigation finds
Plus news of Corby MP's call to reconsider controversial incinerator plans
The cause of the fire at a converted railway station that killed three people in Rushton, was not suspicious, an investigation has found.
Mother Emma Conn, 30 and her four-year-old daughter Mayci, and Louie Thorn, 23, all tragically died in the fire which broke out at 10.30pm last Friday.
This morning Northants Police has issued a statement to say investigations have found the fire was not suspicious. The considered cause has not been made public.
A file will now be passed to the local coroner’s office, with inquests expected to open and adjourn next week.
The statement also referenced the initial arrest of an un-named man, 54, who was later released without charge and they say he is not guilty of any offences. It said an arrest should never be seen as a sign of guilt ‘but as a measure that gives the police the opportunity to secure evidence that might otherwise be lost.’
Detective chief inspector Campbell from Northants Police said:
“In the wake of this tragedy, our thoughts and condolences remain firmly with the families and friends of Louie, Mayci and Emma.
“I hope that knowing there are no suspicious circumstances can bring them some small comfort, with a full examination of what happened now in the hands of the coroner’s court.
“As the police investigation ends, I would like to thank the investigating teams and our partners in the fire service, our neighbourhood officers for their work in offering reassurance and support within Rushton and Desborough, including within local schools, and the Kettering Street Pastor team and other community groups who have volunteered their time to offer comfort and kindness to residents.”
Beautician Emma ran her own business in Desborough. Tributes from her family described her as having a lust for life, who enjoyed simple pleasures. She had worked as a carer before starting her business and had competed at national level in trampolining as a youngster. They said her daughter was the ‘double of her mother’ and the ‘happiest girl you could ever meet’.
Louie’s mum Tiffany described her son as a hardworking man, with a gentle nature who enjoyed going to the gym and computer games. He grew up in Weldon and France before moving to Burton Latimer.
His dad Lee said:
“It’s so hard to capture who Louie really was because he was so special. He lit up every room with his contagious smile and his trademark thumbs up, and one of the things I always admired about him was that he was never down, never sad, and he would never have a bad word to say about anyone, even if they wronged him. He always put everyone else before himself.”
News in brief
Disabled campaigners and activists will protest in Northampton tomorrow about the government’s proposed cuts to welfare benefits.
Crips Against Cuts Northants, which has organised the event at 2pm on Abington Street outside the BBC Northampton building, was founded as a protest network following the disability benefit cuts announcement in the government’s Spring Statement. The group say the cuts will cause intense harm and suffering, pushing disabled people further into poverty, and taking away vital equipment and carers.
Bowie Taylor, part of the Crips Against Cuts group, said:
“We are protesting because these cuts will harm so many people in our community, and across the country. Under these new rules, someone who needs assistance to wash and bathe themself wouldn’t be awarded PIP and likely couldn’t afford a carer.
“We need to come together as a community to show the government we won’t take these cruel cuts.”
The government recently announced a range of controversial changes to the benefits system such as tightening the eligibility criteria for personal independence payments (PIP), the scrapping of work capability assessments and reducing incapacity benefits for people aged under 22.
Nick Wilson, a veteran from Towcester who has a degenerative spinal injury and will be attending the rally this weekend, said:
“So many people are stressed and anxious, and their mental health has declined massively with how this has been mishandled. What do you do when you literally feel like no one cares and no one is listening to you?
“[The government] aren’t even thinking about the current infrastructure and support services which aren’t working. If we can’t even get basic health care support how are we possibly meant to hold down a full time job.
“As someone who served 14 years in the army for this country and was actually injured and disabled from my service, to not be able to trust the state to look after me is a very bitter pill to swallow. I’m beyond scared, fearful and frightened for my future and the situation that I am in.”
Crips Against Cuts Northants say that if disability benefits are cut, disabled people’s needs won’t suddenly lessen and the burden will likely fall on councils, who’ll have to find more money to meet their care costs.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
The names of all the candidates standing in the May 1 Northamptonshire local elections have been published on the unitary councils websites.
Find the North candidates here and the West here.
We will bring you a report with analysis of the candidates next week. And if you have any information about the candidates, or are standing for election and would like to provide some information about yourself, please email sarahward@nnjournal.co.uk
An ongoing planning appeal to expand a Northampton golf resort has been met with further opposition from lodge owners.
Proposals to build an extra 76 new lodges in Overstone Park were taken to appeal with the planning inspectorate after West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) voted to throw out the plans at a meeting last year. Councillors felt the plans, which attracted around 150 objections from members of the public, would be an overdevelopment of the open rural setting and would harm the character of the area.
The park’s owners have decided to appeal the ruling in a bid for permission for the development.
Peter Davis, 76, chair of the Overstone Park Lodge Owners Association, said that the resort’s residents were prepared to support expansion plans in some form. However, they could not back the current proposals due to the number of additional homes and the appearance of the smaller twin lodges.
He added:
“If it became some sort of holiday park then with all the stresses and the strains I could see it potentially reducing the value of people’s properties. I don’t think we’d have a mass exodus of people leaving, but some would give up and go.
“The disruption here generally would be chaotic – it would be carnage for quite a few years and in the meantime people still have to live here and accept all this. It would just destroy the basic elements of the retirement homes we bought into.”
According to the appeal’s website, all comments from the appellant and local authority were due in March. The planning inspector will assess the appeal claims through a written hearing.
Overstone Park Resort has been contacted for comment.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
Reform UK held a rally in Kettering this week. To an almost exclusively white audience, the party’s leader gave a speech to the hundreds assembled at Kettering Leisure Village. He declared them to be Middle England and then told them they were paying huge sums each day to cover the debt of the unitary councils and if his party were elected to run the authorities they would do an audit of the councils’ finances.
Local protestors demonstrated outside.
Westminster Watch
Corby’s MP has called for permission for a waste incinerator to be reconsidered and a review to be held.
The proposed incinerator at Shelton Road, close to the Priors Hall housing development was granted a decade ago by the former Northamptonshire County Council.
In a parliamentary debate about waste incinerators yesterday Lee Barron said the planning system ‘is being played’.
He said:
“Corby is a growing new town. The site I will refer to is on an ex-ironside site with a sludge lagoon. The planning permission for the Corby incinerator was applied for in 2013 and granted on 7 February 2014—more than a decade ago. The only public consultation lasted for 20 days, and one single notice was placed in the Northamptonshire Telegraph, so most residents had no idea about the incinerator.
“DEFRA’s temporary pause on issuing permits ended on 24 May 2024, and the Environment Agency permit for the incinerator was granted just 11 days later. No community funds—section 106 money—have ever been raised from the project. Planning permission has not expired, despite the fact that it is more than a decade old, because work has started on the site—basically, a pathway has been built, but the site itself has not yet been built out. That leaves residents uncertain about the future.
“The planning permission was initially granted because the site was on the outskirts of Corby, but there has been expansion ever since, which has not been taken into consideration. The site is no longer on the outskirts of Corby; it is in the heart of a community, right next to local businesses and thousands of houses. It is 750 metres away from the houses and 1 km away from Priors Hall school and nursery, all of which did not exist when the planning permission was granted.
“The traffic impact assessments carried out 10 years ago have not been updated, and even then they estimated that there would be 175 lorries a day carrying waste through Corby. Do Members not think that, after seeing “Toxic Town”, the people of Corby have had enough of lorries with waste being driven up and down its streets? They do not need it anymore.
“Ministers have informed us that the Government’s crackdown on incinerators will not apply to proposals with existing planning permission, although the fact remains that waste incineration is the dirtiest form of power generation, so councils must now reconsider. That shows that the waste incineration system is broken. The incinerator in Corby must be reconsidered, and we must have a full review of the planning permission that was given for that site more than a decade ago, given that not one brick has been laid and the local circumstances have changed beyond all recognition. That is the least we can do for the people of Corby.”
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