Borough leader would like to 're-engineer' traffic in Northampton town centre - if county council can commit to transport study

The leader of the borough council says he hopes to "re-engineer" the traffic around Northampton town centre - if the county council can get behind funding a full transport study.

The face of Northampton could be set to change in the next decade under the 'masterplan' set out by the Northampton Forward board last Friday (June 26).

But at the conference on Friday, the Chronicle & Echo questioned how the town's infrastructure could handle the added stress of potentially over a dozen simultaneous large-scale building projects.

They include a 1,300-space multi-storey car park built at the railway station, a new hotel and office complex, and more than 400 new bedrooms in the town centre through four separate renovation projects.

This is alongside plans to re-landscape the Market Square, convert the Balestra nightclub into over 60 student flats and any changes that might be made to the Market Walk shopping centre if it is sold.

The Chron asked leader Jonathan Nunn how Northampton could handle the extra stress on its infrastructure in a town where the Drapery and St Peter's Way were regularly hit with traffic jams before the lockdown.

Mr Nunn said: "In terms of infrastructure, we've got to mitigate the impact of these projects. We're going to have to do our best to minimise disruption.

"We would like to get the buses out of the Drapery and remove all the bus stops.

"We have considered approaching the county council and ask them to consider a full transport study.

"We would love to close the Greyfriars Road so we can re-engineer the traffic flow around that area - it's long overdue. But we cannot do that without a full transport study."

It comes alongside plans to renovate the Belgrave House office block on Greyfriars into more that 120 key-worker flats.

The borough council has been previously criticised for placing the town's new bus station on the site of the former fish market on Silver Street and directing buses down the Drapery following the demolition of the former Greyfriars bus station.