Council turning four with a focus on the future

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) will be turning four years old next month, with bold plans to build upon its strong track record of improving outcomes for communities in the years ahead.

The unitary authority, which replaced the previous district, borough and county councils on 1 April 2021, has been making solid progress against its priorities since it was formed as a fresh start for delivering better public services across West Northamptonshire.

The Council enters its fifth year building upon its 'strong, positive start' highlighted by the LGA's recent independent review and with a new compelling long-term plan to work together more strategically with partners as One West Northamptonshire to help communities flourish and businesses prosper.

Cllr Adam Brown, Leader of West Northamptonshire Council, said: "Our first four years as a new council has been a significant journey of change at pace, providing stability and a new ambition for the local area, as recognised by the independent review by the Local Government Association.

"We have worked hard to deliver upon the many priorities we set out in 2021 towards our ongoing vision of making West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive, setting strong foundations for better public services across West Northants despite the many challenges we've faced along the way.

"We are proud of what we have delivered so far but know there is still much more we need to do. As we move into our fifth year, we're embarking on a new chapter, moving forward and not looking back as we work with our partners to shape better services that make a real difference to people's lives."

During its first four years a unitary authority, WNC has charted a broad range of service improvements, projects and activities resulting in better outcomes for local communities.

A full summary featuring many highlights of the Council's work so far is available to view in full on the council's website and includes the following:

Thriving Place

• Driving forward economic growth, turning £45m of grants for regeneration in Northampton into £350million of private investment and making progress on major regeneration schemes including the landmark Greyfriars redevelopment and completion of Market Square transformation.

• Building the area's profile as a centre of sporting excellence through our successful bids for major sporting events including the men's tour of Britain and the women's rugby world cup.

• Investing additional millions of pounds into improving the road networks, joining with partners to offer new and improved bus services, particularly in rural areas and opening up new Active Travel routes to encourage walking, wheeling, and cycling

• Shaping a new climate change strategy and securing millions of pounds in grant funding and investment to progress a range of net zero initiatives with households and businesses

• Developing and establishing new Local Area Partnerships (LAPs) across West Northants, listening to and engaging with residents at grassroots level to understand health and care needs to help them live their best lives

• Involving and engaging communities across West Northamptonshire to help shape our new Local Plan, which will guide how our area is developed over the next 15 years

Thriving People

• Providing essential support to families and individuals struggling with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, with a specific focus on helping with the cost of food, free school meals, utility bills, and other vital household expenses West Northamptonshire is expected to distribute £3.66 million in Household Support funding for the 12-month period and has committed to ensuring the funds help as many people as possible.

• Plans to invest over £9.5million on building new homes to tackle pressures on the local housing market and allocating more than £12.3million to provide relocatable temporary accommodation for those experiencing homelessness

• Encouraging progress on our improvement journey for children's services, with our adoption, fostering and youth justice services recently rated good by Ofsted, and our overall rating rising from 'inadequate' in 2019, to 'requires improvement to be good' in the most recent inspection in 2022.

• Supporting our communities with the emergency response to flooding and committing to working with partners to review flood defences and improve community resilience.

• Making positive progress against our action plan to address ongoing challenge of increasing SEND placements to help ensure better outcomes for families

• Launching new Family Hubs initiative to provide a one-stop-shop for families in need of support, with the first hub opening in Towcester on 31 March followed by further hubs in Daventry and Northampton town centre.

• Distributing around £5.6m in community grants funding for hundreds of projects, from helping local clubs and groups to improve their facilities to initiatives tackling young violence and knife crime.

• Working with our residents who opened their homes to nearly 1,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine, while assisting more than 500 Afghan nationals escaping conflict and persecution through providing emergency accommodation as well as support to help them settle in the UK.

An Efficient and Enabling Council

• Delivering over £115 million of savings to date and transforming the services we inherited – this has involved bringing together over 3,000 staff and hundreds of services from the four former councils, over 800 systems, four main office buildings and thousands of inherited contracts

• We have kept our budgets balanced, enhanced productivity and protected essential frontline services in the face on continuous financial challenges, rising service demands and inflationary pressures affecting all councils nationally.

• Investing in innovation, using artificial intelligence to drive improvements in services from homelessness to special educational needs.

Read the full list of highlights on the WNC website. Further information about the Council's performance during 2024/25 will be available in the Council's annual report, to be published in June 2025. You can view previous annual reports on the WNC website.