Long-serving Kettering councils' Martin Hammond retires after nearly 40 years service

Kettering Town Council's (KTC) Martin Hammond moved to the town’s borough council in September 1988, and has continued with only a brief break for early retirement after the switch to unitary.

The Bolton-born history graduate stumbled into local government after applying for a job in North Yorkshire, working his way through various admin roles, eventually being appointed as deputy chief executive at Kettering Borough Council.

On March 10, Mr Hammond, KTC’s town clerk, will hand over the reins to his deputy Emma Dezelu and he’s looking forward to ‘doing nothing’.

He said: “I’m going to do nothing for a while. We are going to do a bit of travelling and there’s gardening.”

Starting as an admin assistant, he admits it was ‘all completely new’ when he walked through the doors of his first council job where he learnt how to prepare agendas for North Yorkshire District Council.

A move to York City Council saw a change of pace when he was seconded to the Association of District Councils for a year to London where he liaised with the Government ‘nipping into the Houses of Parliament’ preparing papers for elected members, shaping policy.

In 1988, another career move saw Mr Hammond in Kettering, a place he knew nothing about until he started as head of member services.

It took him some time to understand the less direct way of communication that he was used to in the North.

He said: “In York they said what they meant, there was no problem disagreeing quite loudly. In Kettering it was much more round the houses.

“There was a different way of having a discussion that would have been inconceivable here.”

Mr Hammond used to ‘cutting edge’ York found Kettering Borough Council quite ‘staid’, over the years he oversaw admin for committees, elections and communications, shaping his adopted community.

He helped set up the Kettering Student Council, was the first person to send an email at the authority and introduced the customer service department. He was responsible for many of Kettering’s road improvements including the Northampton Road double roundabout and the third lane for the A14 as well as achieving rail hub status for Kettering Railway Station.

When Northamptonshire County Council went bankrupt leading to the formation of the unitary system, Mr Hammond chose to retire, only to be coaxed back to KTC – one of the largest parish councils in the country.

He said: “I wanted to carry on working. I wasn’t ready to give up. It has been quite an eye-opener but it’s been liberating. We are doing ‘nice things’. In this job you get your hands dirty. We’ve developed the market and a large events programme.

"When people attack us as a council, it’s because of North Northants Council (NNC). I get a dozen calls a day for them and I can tell when the refuse team have had a bad day.”

Reflecting on his time, he said: “I like to think I have left Kettering in a better place. We are doing way more. It’s been very busy because the council has been very ambitious. One of the things I have been keen to be is for KTC to be a ‘good partner’.

"Local government is like housework, no-one notices what you do until you stop, the task is continuous.”

For a man who has attended hundreds of committee meetings, he’s not ruling out getting involved in volunteering to help organisations in the future.

He added: “There’s lots of stuff to keep me busy – I’m not going to be a parish councillor!”