Levelling Up: North Northants Council takes action

A cross-party group is being set up to focus on 'left behind wards'

By Natalie Bloomer

Queensway in Wellingborough is one of the county’s ‘left behind’ areas

A cross-party group is to be set up by North Northamptonshire Council to look at how to improve the area’s ‘left behind neighbourhoods’.

At a recent community event in Wellingborough, leader of the council Jason Smithers said NN Journal’s new Levelling Up series which will focus on areas identified as ‘left behind’ had taken the authority by surprise. 

“We had to really search for the government report [which prompted NN Journal’s story and subsequent project]. We’ve taken a good look at that now and have fed back to the all-party parliamentary group which is working on this - they hadn’t informed us beforehand that these wards were included on the list of ‘left behind’ areas.”

Last night the council’s Scrutiny Commission met to discuss the issue and agreed to set up a Task and Finish group which will also include independent people from outside the council.