South Northants Business Forum

I went to an extremely interesting meeting on Tuesday night - South Northants Business Forum. This is a forum set up to look at Business Development across the region and is very well attended by a number of local businesses and development groups. Representatives from Brackley vision http://www.brackleyvision.org/ and Towcester vision http://www.southnorthants.gov.uk/news/docs/2838.htm were also present. These organisations have been set up to revitalise the role of the two Market towns in our modern era.

There was a key note presentation from Mike Hayes who is CEO of West Northants Development Corporation (WNDC) http://www.wndc.co.uk/ Their statement of intent describes them as:

"West Northamptonshire Development Corporation has been set up by government to work with local authorities and partners to make Northampton, Daventry & Towcester better places to live, work and invest."

It was a fascinating presentation and it looks like a lot of great work is being undertaken (and a lot of money spent to support it to!). Their focus is to regenerate our local economy through the development of the area to support new business growth. As, if not more important, they are also ensuring that there is the community infrastructure such as roads, affordable housing, schools, hospitals, retail etc. to support the growth in jobs, thus migration to our area.
This is extremely important as demonstrated in Brackley and my experience of living in Bicester, housing and economic development must go hand in hand. One without the other leads to significant problems for the local communities. Brackley & Bicester have seen massive growth in housing over the past 20 years, yet have done little in the way to improve the Market town centres that this new housing surrounds.

One issue that did worry me somewhat, which I asked Mike Hayes about is affordable housing. With all the economic development going on in our area, we will hopefully see an increase in the affluence of the area. This affluence will undoubtedly lead to higher house prices. Mike's answer was that "...if we don't build sufficient affordable housing, we would have failed" I agree with this, but it did not answer my question fully:

There may well be a significant amount of affordable housing built in South Northants, but will it be built where people want to live? King's Sutton as we know is a fantastic place to live and I would not be surprised if people attracted to the area decide to come and live here. That is great, as I believe we all add a great deal to the fabric of our community. Unfortunately the downside is people who have lived here all their lives will be priced even further out of the housing market.

I am not advocating the building of huge amounts of housing in King's Sutton, as this would I believe ruin our lovely village; but there must be something we can do, as we also need to meet the needs of our village and villagers.
This is a highly complex and emotive issue, which to be honest I do not have the answers to. I will though discuss this at length with people in the village and on South Northants council if I am elected.