North Northants Council (NNC) has voted to sell a number of assets in Rushden, Wellingborough and Kettering.
The ones that are in the Nene Herald area are:
- Land at the Corner of Rectory Rd, Rushden
This piece of land is currently used by Rushden Historical Transport Society for storing vintage vehicles. It is not clear where the vehicles will be relocated to.
- Phase 2 Glenvale Park, Wellingborough
This is part of the Wellingborough North Sustainable Urban Extension (SUE).
It is an odd area, in that although depending upon Wellingborough’s infrastructure, it has been put into the Daventry parliamentary constituency.
- Jacksons Lane Car Park, Wellingborough
A number of years ago, there was a proposal to sell off part of the Jacksons Lane car park. The sale didn’t occur, at least partly, because it was suggested that the loss of parking spaces would damage Wellingborough’s High Street.
There were currently 419 parking spaces here, with 65%^ usage according to the report. NNC had checked the usage over a 6 day period in January 2026.
Another survey was carried out recently (via Facebook) into the level of support for selling Jacksons Lane car park. The results were:
Oppose selling 90%
Support selling 3%
Don’t care 7%
As at 19:00 on Sunday 15th February 2026, 528 had voted against the sale (90%).
In addition, a survey and several petitions have been started. Several people spoke against this at the NNC Executive meeting.
The committee report stated that this was “surplus to requirement”, however speakers commented that this was a well-used facility and the main car park for communities and churches. They explained that if this were not available for parking, this would have a major impact on Wellingborough. They were also surprised that there had been no public consultation about this prior to this decision.
Reform-led NNC argued that this was just the first stage and that planning permission would need to be sought and that at that stage there would be consultation with the public. However the feeling was that once sold and out of public ownership, there would be less control over this huge area in the centre of Wellingborough.
Nene Herald suspects that this will not be the end of this matter.