It’s been a rough old time for the image of Northampton this year.

Sadly for the electorate, most of the bad press that appeared in the media was generated by the officials that were elected and appointed run the place, thus revealing that signs of a leadership crisis are omnipresent.

In the last six months alone Northampton Council has been hit with a run of terrible publicity that have left them open to accusations varying from incompetence to corruption.

This civic body achieved international pariah status in the summer for its obscene behaviour towards an old aged pensioner trying to protect her home from intruders.

Under the headline ‘HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD’ the Daily Mail, ran a full page article about an old dear in Northamptonshire who had been robbed four times in almost as many months.

Her son, who is in his sixties, erected barbed wire on the top of her fence in order to prevent thugs from doing it again.

Not unacceptable behaviour, in the circumstances, one would have thought. One could even go as far as congratulating the chap for his ingenuity and the initiative to solve the problem for himself.

In an act that defied comprehension, the Council ordered the wire to be removed as it could be of harm to an intruder!

The newspaper that broke the story, the evening Chronicle and Echo had the article picked up by media organisations all over the globe, they even had calls about the incident from as far afield as Australia.

The world was appalled.

What made the decision worse was the fact that Council property throughout the town is protected in exactly the same fashion, with barbed wire. Readers were horrified to see in print such an open display of hypocrisy from those who are meant to be helping society.

What is good for one is clearly not good for the other in Northampton.

Such an act of cruelty to an old person hardly enhanced the reputation of this once lovely middle England town marketed as Rose of the Shires.

The stream of negative stories coming out of the 19C Guildhall would see immediate forced resignations and sackings in the private sector.

But this is Britain 2001 where the current government’s doctrine of putting power into the hands of the few has meant the implementation of the experimental ‘upper chamber’; In this instance they are a group of party-line flunkies who ride rough shod over the opinion of all others. They are labelled ‘the cabinet’; a system that is being tried out in some New Labour dominated councils throughout the land.

Like their Westminster masters they would rather spin their way out of trouble than face reality that they were in a hole and should stop digging.

This kind of system only works if the people who have the power also have the appropriate skills to use it.

The one advantage about mini dictatorships is that when they do screw up, which is inevitable, it is transparently easy to see just who is to blame for what.


For an organisation that is already panicking about meeting this years budget, the series of extraordinary financial decisions by borough councillors has to seriously draw into question what kind of priorities and abilities these people have and whether they should be in their positions.

This is a town where the refurbishment of offices for three of its elite cost a staggering £40,000.

This is a town where the local fire service does not have sufficient funds to maintain their emergency vehicles.

This is a town that is going to spend £12,000 of taxpayer money to grant an ex-mayor the freedom of the borough. Liberal Democrats are so disgusted they are boycotting the £7000 party.

This is a town where council officials told a handicapped woman - if she wants to take a to take a bath she can do so once every two weeks at municipal facilities.

The stories go on and on with shockers like; approving the construction of buildings on flood plains. Recent flooding brought the town to a standstill yet the Council continue to let buildings go up in sensitive areas.

Then there’s the one about the Council buying a house for its leader and then re-selling it a loss of £23,000.

In a market where residential property prices have risen 10 – 15% each year for the last three years, something has to be wrong.

Local political website www.6bcn.freeserve.co.uk is full of information past and present about the dark sleazy world of Northamptonshire politics, it has a great archive of stories and we recommend it to all who want to know about what is happening in the County.

To many, Northampton looks like an old fashioned ‘rotten borough’.

For seasoned political observers it is more like a mob style set up in Eastern Europe.

Town halls throughout the world are full of little people with big egos who force through rules and regulations that seriously disadvantage the public they are elected to serve. Northampton is no different.

Their tragic attempts at lobbying for the town to be granted city status are laughable. They make claims about their aims that seem totally contrary to their actions.

Included in the pitch are loony, nonsensical reasons for city status such as: ‘Northampton has: a regional and sub-regional contribution made to life’ and ‘ a capacity and strength within the 200,000 population to overcome setbacks and revive the town’.

What’s all that about? You may well ask.

Chief Executive Roger Morris’s petition to the Lord Chancellor ironically included the following statements on why Northampton should not be town anymore:

a keen commitment to working in partnership across all sectors; a strong commitment to future achievement; a vibrant commercial and enterprise sector and rich diversity, economic prosperity and partnership.

Some would say he is a complete liar. The more charitable could look at it as noble aims that sound rather shallow when put into the context of the recent scandal erupting over the lofty issue of car parking.

Two months ago saw the introduction of Topps. An initiative that has been described by a local businessman as ‘the single most destructive act to trade Northampton has ever seen’.

The Transfer of Parking Powers Scheme has caused uproar across all sectors of society throughout the county. Rushed through, without thorough consultation, Topps is most divisive issue in Northamptonshire.

Both public and businesses are set against the Council in a way that has the stench of the poll tax about it.

The introduction of Topps means that the local authority is responsible for the organisation of municipal parking and collects the money from parking tickets and fines.

In the wrong hands this type of regulation is nothing more than legalised extortion.

And extort they have.

In the first four weeks of its operation Topps generated fines of £240,000.

If they reach their predictions between July 2001 and July 2003 they will have fleeced the public of over £2.8 million.

Councillors are heralding the collection of such an amount of money as a major victory and a sign of their success. Their gloating gives the impression that it is some kind of triumphal feat to grab a load of dosh in such a shameless way.

Those fines come out of hard-earned taxpayers pockets. Vital funds they can ill afford to loose. Vital funds, which could have been put into re-energising the thing that made Britain great - the small to medium sized enterprise.

This terrible state of affairs has seen customer loyalty in the town centre drop to an all time low.

Shoppers don’t like paying to park in their own town. They certainly don’t like to get a fine for running overtime on their daily routine.

A sixty pounds penalty for parking the car in the wrong place at the wrong time! Not surprisingly the public are livid.

People who have been fined won’t come back, that’s a fact. The rest are just put off by the idea of money and time based limitations to their weekly walk around town.

Those who do park and pay, run in and out of the town in as short a time as possible. Gone are the days of a leisurely cup of coffee and a snack in one of the local eateries and then some window-shopping. ‘Got to get back to the car, don’t want a ticket.’ is the norm.

To see such spending power so desperate to get out of their parking space is causing despair to those trying to make a living servicing the towns visitors.

Consumers who have been using the town’s stores for years are leaving en masse for more shopper friendly environments.

Every type of business, large and small is suffering, from hairdressers and cafes to health practices and financial institutions.

What with rates getting higher and services getting less it is another slap in the face for those struggling to survive.

To add insult to injury, the Council, who are in total denial of any suffering, proceeded to increase the number of traffic wardens who patrol the streets to forty two.

If Northamptonshire Police had the resources to put so many officers on the beat the town would have a zero crime rate.

Instead it is the working public that are now being criminalised for going about there daily lives.

With neighbouring cities like Milton Keynes aggressively marketing themselves to the nines, coupled with Northampton’s reputation for aggressive meter maids, the town centre doesn’t stand a chance of attracting any new customers.

Consequently every type of outlet is being crippled by the lack of trade.

So bleak is the outlook, a petition calling for a radical re think of the policy was presented to the Council by over 400 town centre commercial operations.

Now one would have thought that with the looming spectre of a global economic downturn, which could not only lead to recession but a 1930s style depression, the folk at the town hall would have taken them just a little bit seriously. They could at least have the decency to listen to what people were saying and consider their views. After all it is they who are responsible for this act of civic incompetence.

Alas, this is where the story turns nasty.

The council not only refused to acknowledge the petition; they hurled a string of insults at the traders that have left the business community reeling.

When confronted with the fact that the scheme was spectacularly failing the interests of the businesses in the town, Councillor Les Marriott retorted’ it was the traders fault that they were losing business. They were not running their businesses properly and therefore not attracting shoppers. The new parking scheme had nothing to do with loss of trade’.

For a Council that does precious little to promote the town and that has no coherent strategy for it’s promotion, these were rich words. Words that are leading to calls for the resignation of councillors Leslie Marriott and Terrence Wire and the abolition of the scheme.

Northampton’s central shopping zone had become a very unattractive place to be and someone should be held responsible. Northamptonbusiness.com and a group of local businessmen took a stroll last weekend down the towns Abington Street. It was late Saturday afternoon and not something you would recommend your granny to do on her own. We found beggars, alcoholics, and junkies visible throughout our tour. Wild kids on skateboards and bikes zooming down the pavement making one dizzy. Undesirables hanging around cash machines. The drone of buskers was enough to irritate the most saintly. The main indoor shopping complex reeked of urine and chemicals. We talked to Economic migrants claiming to be asylum seekers who were hanging around in gangs harassing local girls whilst doing their deals. We spoke to charity shop managers who are plagued by pickpockets. Many middle aged people we interviewed refused to go into the town centre after dark, especially at weekends, feeling intimidated by the pub culture. What a mess! In all fairness, the dross in the town has more to do with Blair’s Britain than the council’s policies. However it is there for all to see and the council are doing precious little about it.

It doesn’t take Einstein to realise that the throngs of people milling around making the place look busy, have very low disposable incomes and are hardly going to re-inflate the local economy.

Businesses are going to struggle to survive let alone grow in this terrible time for the planet.

The town needs to feel that those with motors, the sector of society on which the modern western economy is based, can use the facilities of their local town without any kind of stress, hindrance or harassment.

Northampton Borough Council’s actions if left unchecked are going to destroy the very backbone of the town’s commerce.

If they carry on their insane parking scheme Northampton will be a ghost town void of those with any kind of disposable income as early as next January.

According to one of the town’s leading legal professionals ‘The Borough Council is a menace to business and need to be brought into line before they do more serious damage to the local commercial infrastructure. Topps should scraped and a new system implemented so that there is no unscrupulous grab for money at the expense of those who can least afford it’.

They should spend some of their ill-gotten gains promoting the town in a massive campaign to attract new consumers.

Northampton Borough Council are certainly the most reviled, despised and some would say hated organisation in the County.

They need to do something about their diabolical image and the image of the town as a business environment.

They need to be reminded they are public servants not gangsters and they should have their actions scrutinised.

They need to ensure the electorate that the people they voted into office bring no further damage and disgrace to the town.

For the town’s traders it is sink or swim and they should be helped not hindered in their enterprise.

The latest news in this sorid saga is that Northampton Borough Council have suspended disabled parking in certain streets in the town over the Christmas and New Year Period. They claim it will prevent congestion. These sick individuals are the congestion that is stuck up the noses of the Northamptonshire electorate and should be treated with the contempt they deserve, they should be blown out of office.

Two recent surveys revealed a lot about life in Northampton UK. Northamptonshire County Council revealed that 45% of pensioners perceive that they live below the poverty line in Northamptonshire. Another survey graded Northampton a less pleasant place to live than Corby!

Bookmaker William Hill put Northampton at the bottom of the list of towns applying for city status. With odds at 40-1 it seems that Northampton will stay a town for a long time to come. What the public have to ask is whose fault is that and why?