What Is The Partnership?

The Partnership qualified itself for the Government's " Action for Market Towns " initiative by completing a comprehensive survey called The Healthcheck.

This provides a current analysis of the "state of health" of practically every aspect of life in the area from affordable housing, schools, health, business vitality and employment opportunities, shopping, public transport and youth facilities to open spaces and sports and arts provision. It enables us to benchmark our own town against national standards and other market towns and identify what can be done to ensure that we in Towcester share in our nation's future prosperity.

Data that came out of the Healthcheck has enabled the Partnership to identify a range of development projects and the Partnership's role is now to develop, facilitate and, where necessary, manage these projects to fruition. Part of this task is to obtain the necessary funding from a variety of sources including lottery funds, government grants, charities, local investors etc. Local, regional, national and European governments are all willing to invest in local communities that know what they want and can demonstrate the ability to manage their future wisely.

The findings of the Healthcheck also demonstrated that the social and physical infrastructure of Towcester had been stretched to breaking point through the population expansion of the last 20 years. The essential remedies and regenerative action to make any further growth of the town acceptable required major investment far beyond local resources, and this situation has been recognised by the inclusion of the town within the area of the West Northamptonshire Urban Development Corporation.

Some of our projects are small while a few will take some years to complete. But, no matter whether large or small, all will have impact on the vitality of the town centre and movement about the town. As they roll out over the next few years, the larger projects will have a major influence on the whole community. While these initial projects tend to focus on the market town itself, a subsequent step will be to discuss with the surrounding village communities what may be achieved in the future with them.