Looking around, locally and nationally, I can only echo Vince Cable's remark about 'Tribes of Conservatives' having descended everywhere. Except Scotland, of course. It was nice to see Labour making a few gains too, at the expense of the Lib-Dems, who seem to have gone down everywhere. It certainly served them right locally, and it was so good to see those turkeys go, after tormenting the market half to death over the past few years. Let's hope the new local Conservatives have rather more sympathy with the plight of the market and the town centre generally, and that they try to enhance trade rather than destroy it.
The planned expansion of Sixfields is a bit worrying for town centre shopkeepers and traders; is this going to open the floodgates to another phase of out-of-town-centre development? Along with the new Asda planned for St James, which will generate funds to expand Franklins Gardens. Will these new big stores make much difference to shopping in the town centre? Can things get much worse anyway?
Of course we could be building - or expanding - big perimeter car parks around Northampton, with free or token-fare buses into the town centre, like they have at Sheffield. To do this we need a rejuvenated town centre and market, something special to attract people in. A dodgy Lib-Dem fountain that doesn't always work and a few bird-crapped seats under what's left of the trees don't really cut the mustard. Silly noisy events don't bring shoppers in, either, as the last Liberal Democrat administration eventually found out, although we told them so from the word go.
To encourage shoppers, free or cheap parking is required, as well as free or nominal bus charges. Buses which can drop and pick up their passengers in the shopping areas of the town, not keep them locked up in the Grosvenor Centre. Easy access to the town centre is a prime requirement for everyone, whether they walk in, cycle in, bus in, or come by car.
But of course there has to be something actually in the town centre to attract them in the first place. Not just branches and outlets of national stores, but good local niche shops that can sell and survive in today's competitive environment. Such shops - under a certain footage - should not have to pay business rates, something which has chased most smaller shops out of the town centres everywhere.
Not to mention a thriving market, busy with a myriad different sorts of stalls and traders, no longer subject to the close regulations which stop spreading onto empty stalls, and which stipulate what colour your backsheets must be, and how many centimetres you can bring forward your display into the aisles and rows. All of which regulations were beloved of the Liberal Democrats, who had the market officers coming around with rulers to check you weren't sticking your flash - display - too far out. What a nit-picking set of turkeys they were! How good it is that they have gone!
Let's hope the new Councillors will encourage trade, listen to the traders and shop owners of the town centre, and gradually pull the town centre - including the market - out of the morass into which it has fallen.
