North Northamptonshire Council leader visits Corby street to apologise for huge warehouse consultation blunder

The leader of North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) visited Corby’s Hooke Close yesterday (February 8) to say sorry for a planning blunder over a controversial warehouse development.

Work began on a new 160,800 sq ft warehouse on the former Weetabix site in November after a planning application was approved by NNC in 2022.

As part of the approval process, planning officers needed to consult residents who might be affected by the plans. But instead of going to Hooke Close – which is right next to the construction site – NNC went to Hubble Road, a street near the other Corby Weetabix site.

Now residents of Hooke Close are waking up to a view entirely obstructed by a rather large warehouse and are furious that they were not properly notified.

Following the exclusive story in the Northants Telegraph four days ago (Monday, February 5), the blunder has received widespread coverage in publications as the BBC, the Metro, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Sun and more.

Yesterday Cllr Smithers was knocking doors to offer his apologies.

He said: “We’ve come down here today to meet some of the residents, so I can apologise to them personally, as the leader of the council.

"We’ve met several people down here today and there’s a mixture of attitudes towards what’s happened. However we are determined to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, this error is not acceptable, and I feel wholeheartedly for the residents of this road.

"If it was me, I’d be quite angry, and rightfully so, you’ve got a great big thing behind their back gardens – there’s a loss of privacy etc, and I think they probably feel quite angry about that.

"We’ll always work to do what we can, to make people happy. Part of an engagement process that I want to do with the residents is to have an overall meeting with a selection of them that have been affected and we can have those discussions as and when that time is appropriate.”