The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

According to Radio Northampton the secretary of state is considering the plans and has not given any indication when he will give a ruling, Corby, Bedford, K*ttering, and Northampton have put in objections to the development. :o

It will go ahead IMO, those towns, just protecting there own plans, but the develpoment is too far away from most of those towns for it to be an issue.

It's with the secretary of state now and apart from the objections of those towns it also apparently goes against the outline development plans for the area as a whole.

Whatever happened to devolved government and empowering local communities? East Northants DC has given overwhelming support to this project and it has the backing of almost everyone I've spoken to. If this project gets mothballed as a result of objections from neighbouring authorities it will not go down well.

ChorltonV wrote:Whatever happened to devolved government and empowering local communities? East Northants DC has given overwhelming support to this project and it has the backing of almost everyone I've spoken to. If this project gets mothballed as a result of objections from neighbouring authorities it will not go down well.

I don't understand why other councils should be able to object on the grounds of competition. If I owned a hat shop and there were plans for a rival hat shop put forward to the council, I wouldn't be able to object and get the development stopped!

At the moment the government are seriously worried about the decline of town centers and in the retail strategy report for North Northamptonshire which was in favour of spreading any retail development over the towns of Corby, K*ttering, and Wellingborough. Why East Northamptonshire council ignored that report is a mystery.

The worrying about the decline is town centres is twenty years too late from Rushden's point of view.

If the High Street had been pedestrianised then that would have attracted more independent traders and we could have had a thriving little town centre.

I think the general plan is a good one but the govt are taking more time to decide whether it is 'too big' in terms of number of units and the size of them units.

Strangely enough Rushden Town centre wasn't considered in the North Northamptonshire strategy, it was considered to include a four centre plan but settled on a three centre approach to only include Wellingborough, K*ttering, and Corby.

coltrane wrote:Strangely enough Rushden Town centre wasn't considered in the North Northamptonshire strategy, it was considered to include a four centre plan but settled on a three centre approach to only include Wellingborough, K*ttering, and Corby.

Rushden always get a bad deal because of its proximity to Wellingborough and the other towns