Northampton Partnership Homes, for example, unveiled a new strategy in June 2020 outlining its ‘aspiration’ to build 3,000 new homes in the town over the next decade.
West Northamptonshire Council also has its own plans of delivering 18,000 homes and the creation of 28,500 jobs this decade.
Over the next few years we should be seeing the completion of these homes.
So this newspaper has rounded up a list of locations where plans have been submitted or approved to convert units into housing.
Northampton Borough Council announced it had bought the M&S site in Abington Street for £1.45 million in order to ensure its future development. The building has stood empty since 2018 when it was vacated by the high street giant - and reportedly has had no offers in the past few years. Councillor Tim Hadland, Council Cabinet member for regeneration and enterprise and Northampton Forward Board member, said in September: “The outline plan at this stage is for around 190 new, high-quality apartments, with units for independent retail and leisure use on the ground floor."
The King David Pub, in Newnham Road, Kingsthorpe, shut down in September 2018 after the Magistrate's Court revoked its license in the face of allegations of an organised crime group operating on site. This came just 10 months after the local was reopened in 2017 after extensive renovations and had been closed for years beforehand. The borough council later greenlit a plan to convert the empty local into nine self-contained flats. The pub's chequered past included an incident where a drive-by shooter fired a shotgun through the ground floor windows of the pub. A member of staff was also threatened with a knife and a man allegedly dangled a machete out of a window.
Plans have been given the green light by the council to clean-up the Kings Heath site in Welland Way so 14 new three-bedroom homes can be built on the land of the former Silver Cornet pub. The 14 homes, which were approved by the local authority in August 2017, will have a total of 14 residential car parking spaces and three spaces for visitors.
The construction work to convert an old shoe factory, in Countess Road, into 68 apartments began during the pandemic and is called The Barker Buildings. A Barker Buildings spokeswoman said the ex-shoe factory was previously a dilapidated and derelict industrial unit, attracting anti-social behaviour and causing safety hazards.
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