22 apartments to be built on Northampton town centre site that has been vacant for two decades

The overgrown site on St Michael’s Road used to be home to Victorian era buildings before being demolished. It lies next to the printing and copying shop, and opposite the Grade II listed former Hawkins factory building.

The new scheme will offer ten one-bed and 12 two-bed apartments. A communal garden area is proposed at the rear of the site with some of the apartments having access to a small private terrace area.

Members of Northampton Borough Council’s planning committee agreed to give the scheme the green light when they met virtually on Tuesday (October 27).

Jonathan Weeks, agent for the applicant and site owner Mr Taylor, told councillors: “It’s a bespoke scheme from award winning architects and has been designed to assimilate into the area without harming the other buildings.

“The owner has become familiarised with the area and has spent £100,000 on fees to get it to this point and wants to deliver high quality development.”

Councillors did have some concerns that no affordable housing or section 106 contributions towards community infrastructure were included in the deal. Mr Weeks said that the scheme would ‘not stack up’ if they were offered, a judgement backed by an independent viability consultant on behalf of the council.

Ward councillor Danielle Stone said she supported some elements of the proposals, but not others. She said: “It’s clearly a good idea for the derelict site to be brought back into use, but I think it should be part of a bigger development of the area.

“Air pollution is a problem as that is a busy road and a narrow street. There’s also the potential for 44 people in this building, and I worry that there would be between 22 to 44 black sacks on the street because the refuse space is too small.”

But members of the committee were inclined to believe that the application would offer more positives than negatives.

Councillor Alan Bottwood said: “I share concerns that there are things we would like in terms of contributions, but we’re not going to get them. This site has been empty since 1999, and if we can get properties to rent out then that is a boost for the town.”