Council service progress summary October 2025
30 October 2025
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) is continuing to make good progress during its fifth year as a unitary authority.
Since April the Council has delivered a broad range of services, activities and projects as it works towards the priorities of the One West Northamptonshire Plan for improving outcomes for communities across the area.
Here is a summary of some of the work that has taken place so far during 2025-26:
- This summer we hosted the Rugby World Cup, an outstanding success that brought tens of thousands of people into West Northants. Nearly 10,000 people attended the Fan Zones, a further 48,500 the matches at Franklins Gardens, 2,000 attended Rugbyfest in Abington Park with over 1,000 people at the trophy tours. The tournament delivered a significant boost for local hospitality and businesses, thousands of additional visitors also filled local hotels, booked restaurants, and supported high street businesses, leaving a positive lasting impact on the local economy - with business owners telling the Council they were pleased with the event and that their sales increased during the duration of the tournament.
- We’ve brought more events and activities into the redeveloped Market Square, including rugby world cup fanzone activities, Northamptonshire Day and planning Christmas events and activities to attract shoppers and increase footfall. More visible leadership improving relations with traders.
- There have been significant steps forward in projects to regenerate Northampton town centre with residents starting to see physical changes - demolition work on Abington Street scheme and St James bus depot. Opening of the new Castle Park. Launched a major consultation in the summer asking residents how they want to see Northampton shaped over the next 15 years. Greyfriars regeneration also moving forward with development agreement signed in June.
- Business grants were launched this summer with over £750k funding available – Driving Innovation Grants and West Northants Rural Grant Scheme.
- We hosted our first presidential state visit welcoming the President of Moldova to Northampton. Also proudly welcomed Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh to mark the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of Northampton
- We launched a robust crackdown on illegal and substandard Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs), targeting “criminal, rogue and irresponsible” landlords. Since the start of this financial year we have issued civil penalties totalling around £120k for failures to license HMOS or failures in fire safety and property maintenance. We have also issued a wide range of enforcement notices, including emergency prohibition orders, prohibition orders, and improvement notices relating to poor housing.
- We tackled housing challenges head-on including reviewing the way social housing is managed in West Northants to better meet people’s needs - consulted on plans to bring NPH services back in-house, to strengthen accountability and ensure a more joined-up experience.
- A new Support Provider was commissioned for Oasis House, addressing gaps in the current homelessness and rough sleeping pathway by delivering better tailored support to individuals with multiple and complex needs.
- We progressed plans for new relocatable temporary accommodation for residents who find themselves homeless through no fault of their own.
- Since April we have delivered over 90 affordable homes with Registered Providers and acquired around 22 homes for temporary accommodation use. We have successfully rehoused 361 families and prevented 113 from becoming homeless, with a further 239 households being relieved of homelessness.
- We removed local Net Zero targets and refocused our sustainability work to prioritise practical, tangible projects that improve lives, reduce energy bills, and support local businesses.
- We finally drove over the line the delivery of the Sandy Lane Relief Road, easing congestion and improving connectivity in the north and west of Northampton.
- We launched the Thriving Communities campaign, prioritising a crackdown on environmental crimes pledging to take a tough stance on offenders and hold them to account. The first day of action was held in the Mounts area of Northampton to tackle anti-social behaviour and improve the cleanliness of the area, including removing graffiti and fly tipping.
- In spring and summer we conducted 963 investigations into environmental crime and in the period to June, issued 1,414 enforcement notices.
- We prioritised a crackdown on fly-tipping, pledging to take a tough stance on offenders and hold them to account. One offender was sentenced to a 12-month Community Order and ordered to pay more than £2,000 in costs and fines after dumping waste illegally in a countryside lane and another repeat offender had to pay more than £6,000 in fines and costs after finding himself in court over waste related offences for the second time in less than two years.
- We introduced a Public Space Protection Order banning car cruising across West Northamptonshire for the next three years amid concerns about anti-social behaviour and noise.
- We’re making public transport more accessible, reliable and convenient, introducing some extra and new bus services with Stagecoach in several areas across West Northants this summer
- We’re working to cut queues and prioritise WNC residents at our household and waste recycling centres by introducing a new booking system.
- This autumn we will complete procurement for the management of our leisure centres, securing fresh investment in facilities that support wellbeing and activity for all families
- We held our first annual town and parish councils conference and launched plans to develop a new Parish Charter to increase engagement and partnership working across our area.
- We have reviewed the Local Area Partnerships (LAPs) across West Northants to better join up community health and wellbeing services closer to home to help residents live healthier, more independent lives – supporting this work with a £100,000 Community Investment Fund.
- We have acted on community concerns by serving Planning Contravention Notices on three hotels in the area being used by the Home Office for asylum accommodation. In our role as local planning authority, the notices are the first formal step as we investigate whether a breach of planning control has occurred before deciding whether enforcement action is required.
- We have pursued fresh opportunities for youths in West Northants, with work under way on a new Youth Strategy and actively exploring a range of future initiatives. Significant work and engagement has also taken place with the Youth Council, Youth Ambassadors and Members of Youth Parliament (MYPs).
- We expanded our support for families with children of all ages, including parenting support, early years activities and health activities with four new family hubs in opening in Upton, Moulton, Daventry and Kingsthorpe and published our new three-year family help strategy to support families across West Northants.
- We’ve cracked down on the sale of illegal tobacco and vapes, raising awareness of the wider harms through our Spot It, Stop It campaign and streamlining and improving the way residents can report their concerns to us. Items seized by trading standards include over 6,800 packets of illegal cigarettes and 6,300 illegal disposable vapes.
- We set out a new approach to how we plan to improve mental health services across West Northamptonshire, finalising a new joint strategic needs assessment which covers all ages from parent infant relationships during the early years and children and young people’s mental health to working age adults’ mental health and the mental health of older people.
- We introduced a new strategy to prevent, reduce and delay poor wellbeing and health conditions and the severity of their impact for adults across West Northants, to help improve people’s quality of live, avoid unnecessary and lengthy hospital stays and the need for costly crisis-focused interventions.
- We launched a new Strategic Partnership with the Shaw Trust, a charitable organisation, to deliver children’s homes, training flats and support to young people who are not in education, employment or training. This includes cohorts of young people who face vulnerabilities, including children in care and care leavers.
- We ran the Summer Reading Challenge in all our libraries and by week 5 of the holidays, we had a total of 4,124 children who had signed up to complete the challenge, with 67 activities and events for families and 1816 people taking part in crafts, games and other fun sessions
- We approved a mechanism to review information sharing arrangements that will lead to future opportunities for working with others to identify savings and efficiencies at the authority.
- We have saved taxpayers in West Northamptonshire almost £1m across three years with new IT software contract negotiations.
- We undertook a review of current working practices to understand the successes and challenges of how the council operates and ensure we maintain a strong focus on productivity.
- We are embarking upon the toughest budget-setting process for Council to date and already making good progress this autumn – with star chamber sessions identifying efficiencies and savings towards bridging a possible £50m funding gap for next year.
- We’re looking at new tech and innovation to make services more efficient and cost-effective – pilot schemes using AI to improve customer experience and predictive analytics to help prevent homelessness.
- We worked with our Children’s Trust to complete a significant and complex replacement of our social care case management system, which will improve outcomes for children and make process more efficient.
- The Northamptonshire Shared Care Record is also now live and accessible, marking a major milestone in adult social care transformation and allowing frontline staff to access vital health information from partners—including GP records, medication details, and hospital/acute care data.
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