'Whirlwind' six months
The Reform UK leader of West Northants Council says his authority will not be fully accountable until after the administration sets its own budget in April
By Nadia Lincoln
On Saturday, Reform UK marked six months since it took charge of West Northamptonshire Council (WNC), in its landslide election win in May.
Here’s a look back at some of the major events during the party’s first six months in charge.
May
Two weeks after Reform UK took over WNC with a 42-seat majority, on May 15, Mark Arnull was appointed as the new leader of WNC and confirmed his cabinet ahead of the first meeting of the new council.
Cllr Arnull vowed to “put local politics back in control of the local people”. He said his priorities would be based on what he heard on doorsteps around potholes, graffiti and litter. He also stood behind a number of national party pledges, such as boycotting EDI training, looking into home-working arrangements and flying only the St George’s Cross and Union Flag.
Criticisms of the new administration were raised from the outset, with opposition leaders questioning when they would see a detailed party manifesto from West Northants Reform.
The first scandal came as opposition councillors called for the leader to take action on two newly elected Reform UK councillors Cllr Ron Firman and Cllr Ivan Dabbs, who were under scrutiny for offensive tweets. Cllr Arnull said he was ‘happy’ for both to continue in his group.
June
At the start of June, WNC was named as one of the frontrunners to receive a visit from Reform UK’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team to assess the authority’s books and make much-needed efficiency savings. This was also partnered with a visit from the national party’s DOGE lead, Zia Yusuf, to the Northampton Guildhall.
The new administration also faced a staged protest over its plans to scrap net zero commitments at its first-ever cabinet meeting.
A visit from the national party leader, Nigel Farage, in June also saw him admit that their DOGE-style operation may find “fewer egregious cases of spending” in Northamptonshire than Reform councils elsewhere, due to the age of the authority.
One of the authority’s first actions at full council in June was to approve a new flag policy, which dictates that only the Union Flag, St George’s flag and council flag can be flown outside its buildings. This policy was labelled “divisive” by other parties at the time.
Councillors also voted against giving themselves a 2.5 per cent allowance increase, which the Reform leader said would save the council £41,360 in the 2025/2026 budget.
July
Two months into their new leadership, the Reform UK administration was criticised for an ‘early U-turn’, after staff were told that home working would continue in West Northants, despite messaging from the national party that remote workers in its local authorities should “be seeking alternative careers”.
This news came after an office space review undertaken by WNC found axing home working could’ve cost up to £15m, along with other negative financial, workforce retention and recruitment impacts.
At a blockbuster cabinet meeting later that month, Reform followed through on its pledge to abandon its net zero 2030 targets, which it said was “simply unaffordable”, and removed reference to the ‘climate impact’ of council projects in officer reports.
The proposals did not go without fierce objection and saw a second meeting of the new authority paused and moved into another room due to climate campaigners disrupting the meeting by staging a ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’ protest.
The Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems also stood together against the decision. They later put in a cross-party call-in to bring the net zero debate back to a scrutiny meeting, however this ultimately failed and the cabinet was not asked to review their decision.
At the same cabinet meeting, WNC became the first to approve a legal framework to review information-sharing arrangements for the DOGE programme. This included caveats that anyone appointed to the DOGE team must be vetted and approved by senior WNC officers, as well as confidentiality requirements that mean any insights from the process will remain the council’s property and can’t be used for ‘political purposes’.
August
The long-awaited Sandy Lane Relief Road, was opened by Cllr Arnull and highways cabinet member Cllr Richard Butler in August, after construction on the project began more than a decade ago.
WNC Leader Mark Arnull also made headlines for personal reasons after sharing footage of him chasing a man down who stole from his car, which was parked on his driveway. He raised concerns that Britain was “becoming a lawless society” and questioned the proportionality of the fine handed over, and whether it served properly as a deterrent for crime.
Tensions surrounding immigration ramped up when a High Court ruling on an Essex hotel housing asylum seekers sparked similar action from Reform and Conservative councils across the country. WNC announced that it was preparing a case against three hotels, used by the Home Office for asylum accommodation, to challenge their status.
Opposition parties also accused the administration of showing that they “cannot be trusted to stand by their own words”, after it was revealed two-thirds of Reform members attended a training session that WNC said included content on EDI and climate, despite saying they would boycott.
However, the WNC Reform UK leader stood by the fact that his group had refused to attend equality and diversity training “since day one”, stating that the session his group attended was around legal frameworks that were important for councillors to understand.
The council also weighed in on ‘Operation Raise the Colours’, which has seen streets across the country adorned with the Union and St George’s flags cable-tied to lampposts. While Cllr Arnull said it was “great to see residents having such a sense of national pride”, council bosses warned residents that it is an offence to attach anything to lampposts without the consent of the highways authority and the health risks of doing so.
September
Just four months into the new financial year, West Northants Council warned of a £9.6m budget overspend in 2025/26, due to growing costs and service demand. The previous Conservative administration, which set the budget, also set aside £11.4m in contingencies to tackle any exceptional expenditure, however officers said this already had to be used.
Another financial bombshell came later in the month, when the authority announced they were facing a budget shortfall of £50m for 2026/27. The Reform UK administration said it would go through an efficiency savings process to bridge the gap, but warned members of the public that the choices it needs to make “will not be easy and may not be popular”.
The Reform UK council leader later told NLive Radio on its weekly politics show that the authority had “a very big financial challenge ahead” and confirmed that council tax is “highly likely” to go up next year due to rising budget pressures.
An update on local asylum hotels also followed at a September full council meeting, with Cllr Arnull announcing that they will look into the next steps against the hotels, after receiving replies to planning contravention notices. Protest groups stood outside the Guildhall, accusing the authority of “fanning the flames of racism” on the issue.
The administration also unveiled its new delivery plan during the same meeting. The leader referred to it as “the post-election manifesto” – nearly five months after Reform were voted in.
The four key areas of focus included boosting business and growth, creating stronger and safer communities, caring for people and delivering efficient public services.
October
At the start of October, an advert was posted to fill the Chief Executive position after Anna Earnshaw leaves the authority. The council is offering a salary of up to £201,902 for the role, alongside being a part-flexible worker. This means whoever is appointed will be able to work from other locations, including from home, up to three days a week.
The leader of the opposition called out the Reform UK administration for “hypocrisy”, stating that the advert was breaking its promises to slash ‘astronomical salaries’ and ‘end work from home culture’. A WNC spokesman said the salary and working arrangements reflect Chief Executive roles at similar authorities and that the part-flexible conditions were currently in place.
A consultation was also shared by the authority this month, which confirmed that most tenants agreed with bringing social housing in-house from Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH), after a series of failures were uncovered at the end of 2024. A decision on the council’s social housing arrangements is set to be made at the next cabinet meeting on November 11.
WNC announced the opening of four new family hubs across West Northants before the end of 2025, in Upton, Moulton, Daventry and Kingsthorpe.
However, more financial troubles came to light as a schools forum heard that the authority was forecasting a £31.1m overspend in its Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) funding this year due to increased demand and costs of provision for SEND children. On top of its £21.5m DSG overspend brought forward from previous years, WNC will be in an estimated total £53m deficit at the end of 2025/26.
After months of silence on DOGE progress, a freedom of information request to the council revealed that, as of October, there were no members appointed to the external efficiency team and no data had been shared.
No timetable or forecasts for DOGE savings have been announced as of yet, however Cllr Arnull said that his administration is applying its “own internal DOGE programme” to find savings ahead of setting next year’s budget.
At the end of October, WNC held a flagship Northamptonshire Day event in the Market Square alongside North Northants Council.
Cllr Arnull said the two leaders would commit to making the celebrations an annual event. He also shared his vision for using the Market Square for more events in the future, pointing to the recent success of Diwali, the Northampton Great Fire commemorations and the Rugby World Cup.
Since the May elections, Reform’s majority has decreased by one member to 41 after Cllr Adam Smith was suspended from the party.
What has Reform UK said?
Summing up the last six months, WNC Leader, Cllr Mark Arnull, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that it had been a “whirlwind” since taking over the running of the administration.
The LDRS spoke to Cllr Mark Arnull about the progress his administration had made against its key election pledges, which included improving highways fixes, tackling overdevelopment in the region, reducing fly-tipping, and closing local asylum hotels.
The WNC leader said that significant progress had been made on pothole repairs, with 25 km² of road surface repairs carried out between May and September, compared to 13.5 km² in the same period in 2024.
On overdevelopment concerns, Cllr Arnull said that the cabinet had been working on a piece to consolidate complaints and queries on Section 106 contributions from major developments and put together an action plan to see them resolved. He also said they had taken a “very strong approach” to fly-tipping through publicising enforcement and fines given to offenders and holding local action days.
He added that the council is still pursuing action on closing asylum hotels and that it is getting qualified advice and counsel on the issue.
When asked about the upcoming budget and if residents will start to see some of the results of efficiency savings come through on council tax bills, Cllr Arnull said:
“Our campaign pledge was to analyse, review and then start implementing plans to save and drive efficiencies.
“We’ve delivered some very substantial pieces of work. I’m not afraid of making difficult decisions and facing these issues head-on.
“The expected rise in council tax is a very contentious subject and if the councils don’t raise council tax, it does affect their core spending power.
“Over the coming year, we will be going to our budget that’s been put together by our administration and passed at full council and, in that, we will be fully accountable from April onwards and the things that we do.
“I remain resolute in my fight to see fair funding come to West Northamptonshire and that gap that we face next year being closed with the support of extra money from central government.”
We hope to bring you an update on the North unitary shortly as leader Martin Griffiths has agreed to an interview.
So nothing much then other than some bizarre, politically correct and frankly silly posturing around flags, the abandonment of trying saving the human race from global environment collapse by abandoning net zero, and some irrelevant and bigoted moves around asylum hostels.
And the boats are still arriving on the Nene. 😂
What a shower of 💩
The only good thing is that N J are ‘on the case’