By Brendan Bruder
AbbeyRoss
EVEN the most curmudgeonly critic cannot help but to have noticed the significant changes taking place in Northampton town centre and its immediate environment.
Whether you walk through the University of Northampton development or navigate the roads around the County Council headquarters in Angel Street what is clear is this is rapidly becoming a town that has finally begun to awaken from a lengthy slumber.
As we all tread wearily to the polling stations for local and central Government elections, what is abundantly clear is that Government of whatever hue must put jobs and our living environment at the top of their workload and resist vanity projects.
With a population of approximately 218,000 people, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England, it is close to lots of other major population centres and its decent transport links are evidenced by it being at the heart of the country’s golden triangle for logistics and distribution businesses.
By September of 2018 (yes, next year) there will be 14,000 full-time equivalent students at the University of Northampton and within a matter of a few weeks there will be up to 2,000 County Council staff based out of their headquarters in the historical centre of the town.
Recent studies commissioned by the Northampton Town Centre Business Improvement District (BID) show that the town has the potential to attract high-quality retail and restaurant businesses looking to feed and sell to the town’s affluent catchment, but yet we seem to be constantly looking over our shoulders at what the competition are doing – instead of concentrating on our USPs.
Phase I at Rushden Lakes is scheduled to open this summer and for sure that development will drag some of the demand away from Northampton.
This could well be a temporary knock back, with notoriously fickle car-borne shoppers and diners swapping Milton Keynes or even Riverside to sample what East Northants has to offer.
There are shop, office, restaurant and business space opportunities all round Northampton at competitive rental and pricing entry points and, on the whole, a positive and can-do attitude from the business community and local authorities.
It is probably too much to hope that the political parties may set aside their differences to form a grand coalition with the business community, but something approximating to that would be a way forward.
Now that would be a turn up for the books.
For further details contact Brendan Bruder at Abbeyross Chartered Surveyors on 01604 629988, email or visit the website www.abbeyross.co.uk