Northampton town centre improvement plans should include pedestrianising ALL of Abington Street, says Labour councillor

A Labour councillor has described plans to smarten up the town centre as a 'missed opportunity' to overturn a failed scheme which took away pedestrianised areas.

Councillor Danielle Stone said she is sad the £4.6million scheme approved by West Northamptonshire Council cabinet last week does not include banning cars from the top end of Abington Street.

The now defunct Northampton Borough Council oversaw a scheme to allow cars back into Abington Street between St Giles' Terrace and Wellington Street in 2014 in a bid to make it easier for people to get into town.

But one market trader said recently the town centre has been like Chernobyl since the change.

The opposition councillor for Castle ward added: "It's gorgeous and I'm absolutely delighted with the investment and the response to the plans.

"We spent £3 million on Abington Street before to depedestrianise and I am a bit sad the opportunity to repedestrianise has not been taken.

"It wasn't a good project and it didn't ever work in terms of increasing footfall. I think this is a missed opportunity to further our green agenda."

Cllr Stone also voiced concerns about numbers of small, one-bedroom flats dominating the town centre and damaging chances of making it a family-friendly environment.

She added: "Are they going to be transitory or are they going to be invested in it. If we had a greater mix of housing, that gives us a completely different feel to the town.

"If we have people living in the middle of town and if we have the scenes we see on a Friday nights along the Wellingborough Road... it's horrible, drunks rolling about all over the street.

"We don't want that in a family-friendly space. We've got to pay attention to who is going to be living there."

He said: "How are we going to get people to come out of their boxes and want to go into the town centre every week.

"My concern is we're too early to get into the architects and stonemasons and haven't done the partnership building."

Cash from a £24.9 million kitty awarded from the government's Towns Fund is earmarked to improve the pedestrianised area of Abington Street and Fish Street, enhancing the experience for pedestrians and families.'

Planning will likely take another year with work starting in summer 2023 and finished by spring 2025.

Cabinet member for town regeneration, Councillor Lizzy Bowen, said the plans — following on an £8.4million revamp of the Market Square which to start this year — are 'a good news story.'

She added: "Family-friendly is the whole point of this. It will not be student accommodation, it will be families and business people.

"We have to make the Market Square a wow and make people say, 'yeah we want to go and see that'.

"There needs to be hell of a marketing exercise and we're only at the start of that."