Community groups across the North Northants Council (NNC) area will miss out and 'suffer' if the Reform-led executive choose to axe ward councillors’ funding grants, says a leading opposition member.

Since 2022, the council has set aside a pot of cash – ward empowerment fund – that elected members can use for small community-based projects with each of NNC’s 68 councillors allocated £2,000 each financial year – a total of £136,000.

Using a simple application process, the money has been allocated by individual councillors to be spent supporting initiatives and groups within wards.

Plans to be put before NNC’s ruling executive were to repurpose £68,000 of funding from the existing scheme to develop a new grant fund aimed at young people, with the other half being allocated as before – but now the ward empowerment fund has been recommended to be scrapped altogether.

Corby Cube, North Northamptonshire Council
Credit: Nadia Lincoln LDRS — Corby Cube, North Northamptonshire Council Credit: Nadia Lincoln LDRS

placeholder image — Corby Cube, North Northamptonshire Council Credit: Nadia Lincoln LDRS

Cllr Dez Dell (Green) said: “I’m concerned for our local community groups who are going to suffer.

“The ward empowerment fund is really accessible for those smaller groups who aren’t charities or CIC’s and can’t access other pots of grant funding.

“These groups often lack the capacity, time and knowledge to be able to apply for big grants, which makes the ward empowerment fund a huge deal to the hyper-local organisations who do so much good in our communities.”

North Northamptonshire Council set to cut community funding pot in half as new y...

In June 2025, the executive agreed to adopt and implement the ward member empowerment fund.

Last month, new plans were proposed to split £68,000 of funding from the existing scheme to focus on ‘empowering young people’ – a project in partnership with the Youth Advisory Council.

After going before NNC’s corporate scrutiny committee, members recommended the allocation of £68,000 ward member empowerment fund – on an individual councillor basis – extending the application window for the fund to a full 12-month period instead of three months.

But the proposal has been rejected and it is proposed that the remaining £68,000 is returned to the council’s ‘overall budget’.

Cllr Graham Cheatley, the council’s deputy leader and executive member for finance, efficiency and change, said: “As a council, we want to make sure we are spending money in the right way.

"We have identified that the current ward empowerment scheme is underutilised and with this in mind, it is only right that we look at alternatives that fit in with our corporate plan.”

Concerns brought up by the scrutiny committee included the potential impact on local councillors’ ability to respond to ‘hyper-local’ needs, the importance of the existing fund in supporting small community groups and unspent funding could reflect ‘engagement issues’ rather than a lack of demand.

North Northamptonshire Council’s executive will meet on Tuesday, May 12 at 10am at Corby Cube and the papers are now available online. The meeting will be livestreamed on YouTube.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story featured a picture of a suicide prevention bench in Raunds, the caption for which stating that this was an example of a ward empowerment fund project. The bench was in fact a Raunds Town Council initiative. We apologise for the error.