Council hits back at criticism over 27-month delay to Northamptonshire relief road

The Towcester relief road is set to open in spring, according to the developer building it, Persimmon Homes.

The relief road is part of huge housing developments in the town by Persimmon, which will see thousands of new homes. The relief road will join the A5 to the A43 to stop traffic, mainly HGVs, travelling through the town centre on the A5.

Independent councillor Ian McCord, whose ward the road is being built in, welcomed the news that road would finally be open in spring but questioned why enforcement action had not been taken against the developers by WNC.

"The fact remains that this will be 27 months late. The planning permission states that the road should have been open when the 1,016th house was occupied. That happened in January 2024,” Councillor McCord said.

He claimed the housing developer had let down the people of Towcester and had missed opportunities to deliver the road earlier by turning down grants.

Councillor McCord labelled the council “spineless” for not taking any enforcement action.

"The road completion is welcome, there are plans afoot now in the new Local Plan to build a further 1400 homes in Towcester, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this saga,” he added.

In response, Councillor Thomas Manning, Reform’s cabinet member for planning and communities, said WNC took planning enforcement seriously but a rigid process was not reasonable in every case.

“Taking formal enforcement action would not have been proportionate or practical here,” Councillor Manning said. “There was clear evidence that the developer was using all of its means to bring forward the development of the road and the roundabout, alongside this it was not possible for the council to demonstrate that continuing the development would result in any significant harm to the community or motorists.

“Without reasonable justification, stopping development would have risked significant legal and compensation costs which would then have been a significant burden on the taxpayer, have reputational damage on the council and could have delayed delivery of the road rather than expediting it,” Councillor Manning added.

“As work was already under way, the council opted to continue working with the developers to ensure the road was built as quickly as possible alongside continued housing development which would have happened anyway.”

Explaining the delay, Persimmon said: “We commenced the detailed design at a time when it seemed feasible to deliver the scheme early, but the complexity of the technical approval process, and the success of the development in terms of sales rates which brought the anticipated trigger date forward, put pay to those early ambitions.

“We recognise that the delivery has been delayed and for that we apologise. However, for the last two years we have worked effectively with all partners involved in delivering the road and are pleased that we are on track to open in the spring.”