The Conservative administration (who all resigned in 2018) left the 2017 Draft Neighbourhood Plan on the table. It had cost local taxpayers over £44,000 and had, already, been largely overtaken by events.

Subsequently the council, with Independents for Desborough (IfD) in control agreed to engage ‘Navigus’ to conduct a health check on the Draft Neighbourhood Plan and they reported back in October 2020. The report was quite damning, and it was almost a case of going back to the drawing board to start again.

It was clear that the October 2017 draft version of the Neighbourhood Plan had been overtaken by events and there were questions as to whether or not it was ‘fit for purpose’. In total Fifteen Councillors had resigned from the council since the 2017 version was printed and continuity was a factor on a large project such as the Neighbourhood Plan.

A sub- committee of the council was formed (along with a member of the public and a local business representative) and met in December 2020. Ploughing through all the documentation was not made any easier by the covid pandemic and the meetings being held online. Despite this the meeting in December 2020 made some significant progress but there was still a long way to go.

When Labour took control of the council in 2021 a consultant was appointed to guide us through the process and, it whilst it has taken far longer than anyone expected, we now have a working document which is up to date and ready to go out for formal consultation in the near future.

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Most of the documents (including the 2017 draft) are available to download at – Neighbourhood Plan – Desborough Town Council