Town-centre sites, brownfield and the villages around. One council, and it cannot show a five year land supply.
Sixty-six bedrooms, taken from first design through to completion.
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Submitted at 95 apartments, granted at committee for 31 homes, then built.
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Four storeys failed at appeal in 2013. Our three-storey design was granted, twice.
View projectNorthampton decides on a joint core strategy from 2014 and a local plan adopted in 2023. A single new plan for West Northamptonshire was published for final consultation in October 2026. Six things shape most schemes here.
The West Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy from 2014 and the Northampton Local Plan Part 2, adopted in 2023, decide every application. A single new West Northamptonshire plan was published for final consultation in October 2026.
Read moreThe council reported 5.5 years at April 2025. An inspector put it nearer 4.6 at appeal, and the council's own figure for April 2026 is 4.3.
Read moreThe Joint Core Strategy sets 35 per cent. The June 2026 contributions document confirms the former borough's trigger at fifteen dwellings, while setting the former Daventry district at ten.
Read moreArticle 4 directions covering the whole former borough have required planning permission for small HMO conversions since November 2020.
Read moreEmployment areas are safeguarded, new office floorspace is supported, and the council is working with a development partner to redevelop two town-centre brownfield sites.
Read moreOn the 2026 indexed rates, houses and flats across the Northampton charging area are charged 73.80 pounds per square metre, including the sustainable urban extensions.
Read moreWest Northamptonshire Council policy, correct at October 2026. The council's April 2026 housing land figure is 4.3 years and the new local plan was published for final consultation on 5 October 2026, so we re-check both at the point of application.
Submitted in 2018 at ninety five apartments and studios, redesigned twice with the council and Historic England, then approved at committee in March 2020: twenty three apartments and eight townhouses, with the Victorian house at number two kept. Sold with the permission, it has since been built.
See the work
Every application we make is a matter of public record on a council planning register. Ours reach more than 100 planning authorities across the UK, and Northampton has been receiving applications in our name since 2000. The practice has been working since 1970.
Developers, homeowners and commercial clients all need the same first answer: what will this site take? The route to it changes with the project.
Town-centre sites, brownfield and backland plots, from residential architects who design schemes that are viable and buildable, with the planning case built in from the first sketch.
Residential developmentExtensions, remodels and replacement houses, including the conservation-area rules that decide what a period street will accept, designed around how you live.
Private homesShops, offices, care schemes and change of use, from commercial architects who argue the case with the evidence West Northamptonshire Council expects to see.
Commercial workThirty one homes approved at committee on Castilian Street, and since built. A sixty-six bed care home at Brackley, taken from first design through to completion. Yours would not be our first application here, or our first committee.
Straight to a complete, valid submission. The delays that cost a programme are the avoidable ones, not the statutory clock.
A lead architect is involved from the first conversation to the last drawing. The team that starts your scheme stays with it, so nothing is passed down a chain.
Appraised properly, in the open, by someone who knows what a council needs to see and when the right answer is to push back.
Conservation area Flood Zone 3West Northamptonshire cannot show a five year housing land supply: its own April 2026 figure is 4.3 years. Under the August 2026 national framework, housing inside the town starts from a presumption in its favour whatever the supply, and the shortfall opens up well-related sites on the edge of town, provided the argument is actually made.
design and amenity affordable housing housing need five year supplyCosts staged behind certainty. Every commitment sits behind the decision that justifies it, so nothing is spent on a scheme that has not earned it.
appraisal consent your spendFrom first appraisal to final discharge, every survey, report and condition is tracked for you. You are not the one chasing an ecologist in week nine.
Ecology surveyReport inCondition 7tracked to dischargeTell us about it and a Senior Architect will give you an initial appraisal and guide you as to what to do next.
Start a conversationYes. Our lead project here is at Castilian Street, on the corner of Derngate, where thirty one homes were approved at committee in 2020 and have since been built. Applications in our name have been going to Northampton's council since 2000, and they sit on the registers of more than 100 planning authorities across the UK.
No, and the council's own assessment says so. Its report put supply at 5.5 years at 1 April 2025, but at an appeal for 700 homes at Brackley an inspector did not accept the figure and put deliverable supply nearer 4.6 years. The council's own assessment at 1 April 2026, published in July and reported to the planning policy committee on 4 August 2026, puts it at 4.3 years. Under the August 2026 national framework that matters most for well-related sites on the edge of town, because housing inside the town starts from a presumption in its favour whatever the supply. The figure is restated every year, so check the position again before an application goes in.
Thirty-five per cent, from fifteen homes. The Joint Core Strategy sets the percentage, and the council's Infrastructure and Developer Contributions document, adopted in June 2026, confirms the trigger for the former Northampton Borough at fifteen dwellings or more. That is worth knowing precisely, because the same document sets the former Daventry district at ten, so the trigger depends on which of the former councils a site sat in. Provision is expected on site. The council accepts off-site provision or a payment only in exceptional circumstances, although the August 2026 national framework allows off-site delivery where it would produce more or better affordable homes.
Yes. Article 4 directions now cover the whole of the former Northampton Borough, the last of them in force since November 2020, and together they remove the permitted development right to change a family house into a small house in multiple occupation. The conversion needs a planning application. The directions do not make HMOs unacceptable in principle. They mean each one is judged against the council's policies on concentration and amenity rather than happening by default.
On the 2026 indexed rates, new houses and flats across the Northampton charging area are charged 73.80 pounds per square metre, including the sustainable urban extensions, and retail outside the central zone is charged 147.61. Rates are indexed every January, and the rate applied is the one in force when the application is determined, not when it is submitted. Section 106 contributions sit on top, guided by the council's June 2026 contributions document.
The evidence you have to bring. Northampton has 21 conservation areas and more than 500 listed buildings, from the town-centre streets to the Boot and Shoe Quarter, where the shoe industry's factories and terraces are protected as a piece. The local plan expects heritage assets to be conserved and enhanced through careful design, so a heritage statement has to read the character of the area properly before a design is proposed. Permitted development rights are also narrower inside the boundary.
The statutory targets are thirteen weeks for a major application and eight for most others, counted from the day after a valid application is received, and complex or contentious schemes go to committee. Castilian Street, a contested town-centre scheme, took thirteen months from validation, and two rounds of amendment, to reach committee. Pre-application advice is the reliable way to shorten the road: the council encourages it, and it surfaces the objections while they are still cheap to solve.
Two adopted documents decide applications in Northampton. The West Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy, adopted on 15 December 2014, sets the strategy and the housing and affordable housing requirements. The Northampton Local Plan Part 2, adopted in March 2023, holds the detailed policies most schemes actually turn on, from design and amenity to employment areas and the town centre.
A single new West Northamptonshire Local Plan running to 2043 will replace both. Its Regulation 18 consultation ran from 29 January to 27 March 2026 and the Regulation 19 version was published for consultation from 5 October to 16 November 2026. On 14 September the council's planning policy committee decided not to take the plan forward. A Government direction the next day required the council to consult and to submit the plan for examination by 31 December 2026.
The Part 2 plan keeps its weight: under the national framework published in August 2026, policies are not given less weight simply for their age, although any that clash with the new national policies carry very limited weight.
West Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy 2014 · Northampton Local Plan Part 2, 2023 · Government direction, 15 September 2026West Northamptonshire Council's own housing land availability report, published in June 2025, put deliverable supply at 5.5 years at 1 April 2025. At an appeal for 700 homes on the edge of Brackley the inspector did not accept that figure, challenged a number of the sites counted towards it, and put supply nearer 4.6 years. The council's head of planning policy reported the outcome to the planning policy committee on 22 April 2026, and the council's own assessment at 1 April 2026, published in July, puts supply at 4.3 years.
Under the national framework published in August 2026, housing inside a town should be approved unless the benefits are substantially outweighed by the harm, whatever the supply. Below five years, the same test opens up housing on the edge of a settlement where it is well related and the infrastructure can take it. It is a presumption, not a waiver: design, amenity, heritage and flood risk still decide applications here.
The number is restated every year and contested at appeal more often than that, so it is worth re-checking at the point of application rather than relying on the last figure that was published.
Housing Land Supply Assessment April 2026 · planning policy committee, 4 August 2026 · NPPF 2026, S3 to S5Policy H2 of the Joint Core Strategy seeks 35 per cent affordable housing in Northampton, subject to viability on a site by site basis. The council's Infrastructure and Developer Contributions document, adopted in June 2026, replaced the three separate guides inherited from the former districts, and its affordable housing table confirms the threshold for the former Northampton Borough at fifteen dwellings or more.
The same table sets the former Daventry district at ten dwellings and former South Northamptonshire at ten dwellings or half a hectare, so the trigger depends on which of the former councils a site sat in. A fourteen-home scheme can carry no on-site requirement in one and a full one in the next, which is worth testing before a site is priced.
Provision is expected on site, built out alongside the market housing and integrated in small clusters. The council's document accepts off-site provision or a commuted payment only in exceptional circumstances, although the August 2026 national framework allows off-site delivery where it would produce more or better affordable homes. A viability case has to be made with a full appraisal the council can audit.
Joint Core Strategy policy H2 · Infrastructure and Developer Contributions SPD, June 2026Nationally, changing a family house into a small house in multiple occupation of up to six people is permitted development. In Northampton it is not: Article 4 directions now cover the whole of the former Northampton Borough, the last of them in force since November 2020, building on earlier directions that had covered individual neighbourhoods since 2011. Every C4 conversion therefore needs a planning application.
The directions do not make HMOs unacceptable. They give the council the ability to judge each proposal against its policies on concentration, amenity and housing mix instead of watching the change happen by default.
For anyone buying with conversion in mind, the practical consequence is timing and certainty: the application is a real test, not a formality, and the answer depends on what the surrounding streets already hold.
Article 4 directions, former Northampton Borough, 2011 to 2020Northampton's plan does not treat the town centre as a problem to be managed. The Local Plan Part 2 safeguards existing employment areas, including the Waterside Enterprise Zone along the Nene, and the Joint Core Strategy directs major new office development to the town centre first.
The council has also put its own weight behind delivery: it chose a development partner in 2023 to bring forward two vacant town-centre brownfield sites, Four Waterside and Marefair, and committed to a development agreement in March 2025 for a mix of hotel, office and residential use. A council that is partnering on its own town-centre schemes is a council that understands what viability evidence looks like.
For a landowner or developer the signal is practical: well-argued town-centre and riverside proposals land on receptive ground here, and the policies that decide them are specific rather than discretionary.
Northampton Local Plan Part 2, policy EC1 · Joint Core Strategy, policy E2 · Waterside Enterprise ZoneThe Northampton charging area's Community Infrastructure Levy is flat and comparatively low: on the 2026 indexed rates, new houses and flats are charged 73.80 pounds per square metre wherever the site sits, including the sustainable urban extensions. Retail outside the central zone is charged 147.61, and retail inside it is treated separately.
The contrast with the rest of West Northamptonshire is sharp. A rural scheme of four homes or fewer in the former Daventry district is charged 308.87 pounds per square metre, more than four times the Northampton rate, so the same floorspace carries a very different levy either side of the old boundary.
Rates are indexed every January and the rate applied is the one in force when the application is determined, not when it is submitted. Section 106 contributions for education, open space and health sit alongside, guided by the June 2026 contributions document, which asks for open space provision from all major developments in Northampton.
West Northamptonshire CIL rate summary, 2026 · Infrastructure and Developer Contributions SPD, June 2026
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