John Dickie: Northampton’s future is Northampton’s past

What brought such a diverse group was a growing concern emanating from that august and all knowing body nowadays called West Northampton Council.

It is at this point that readers either roll their eyes, or huff a bit or compose a letter full of splenetic fury mentioning incompetence, stupidity, brown envelopes, funny handshakes, only in it for themselves, I’m sure you get the picture and some of you may be sharpening your quills as you read this.

Here I also declare my interest – I served for several decades on the borough council and all the jibes were common then. Like all councils we made mistakes, collectively and individually. I’m also sure that some elected members were ‘only in it for themselves’ but truth to tell I was unaware of any such malarkey. The only brown envelopes I ever received came from Inland Revenue.

The real core problem of the WNC conundrum is that we have had too many local government re-organisations. I was first elected as a result of such a mishap. In 1974 it was decided that the County Borough of Northampton was not fit to look after all its services and central government created a two-tier system (after all several hundred years as a freestanding independent town did not suit the new model).

So local government, especially here, has gone through upheavals that have weakened the civic structure. The county council went bankrupt through bad management – instead of reforming NCC the clever chaps in Westminster then created two mini-county councils and in doing so moved responsibility further away from those who need and use the services – local communities.

The needs of a town like Northampton are far different from those of rural communities. Drawing an arbitrary line across a map does not recognise the wide variations. It does not help that the majority of elected members represent the rural areas.

The creation of WNC as a sort of surrogate County Council has caused endless confusion within the town. Reading comments on this newspaper’s Facebook reveals the depth of confusion – many still confuse WNC with the town council and as WNC is fairly homeless and at best peripatetic it’s an organisation hard to pin down – is it based in One Angel Square (aka Jim Harker’s folly) or in the Guildhall or in Towcester or Daventry or even World’s End? One thing is certain – Northampton Guildhall, all of it, is the identified home of Northampton Borough – end of!

That is because a town is not just a collection of buildings, a few roads and somewhere between one place and another.

This town is an ancient settlement – it was once a regional capital. It had a significant role in creating part of a national story – it is what we know best as a heritage. Unique in both its geographical location and the sort of town that developed into. Northampton has a hinterland and I don’t mean the surrounding green fields of ‘the county’.

I don’t think the new masters – the invisible West Northampton demi-gods – have quite got the idea. This is more than a county town – it is a state of mind. My old friend, the late Roger Winter, called Northamptonians ‘Akkard’ – a town that elected Bradlaugh to tell them down in Lunnon that they couldn’t push the us around.

And that has to be our collective message to WNC. They might want to bribe us with fountains in the Market Square or fancy paving stones in Abington Street but we have a heritage that cannot be bought and sold like so many student flats.

You may want to flog off bits of our Guildhall to build another hotel – but our beautiful Guildhall and its stunning courtyard and addition (designed incidentally by local architects to a design agreed after real public consultation) is just that – ours.

WNC, keep your grubby paws off our Guildhall. You may not like it and see only pound signs but our history and civic pride is worth more than your pretentions!

And anyway, judging by your inept management style and structure you may end up redundant, holed up in the leaking carcass that is One Angel Square.