Hopefully nobody ever has the misfortune to have to deal with North Northants Council. Unfortunately, the reality is many will, and many will be faced the abject and utter incompetence of the inept council staff and the desperately incompetence and unprofessional planning department.
After the paying the council for their pre-planning advice and facilitating a site visit for Mr Marlow, Senior Planning at North Northants Council, they failed to provide any such advice, forcing us to submit the application without the benefit of this. We also had to subsequently sue the council, a case we won, and one they only settled when we gave them a deadline before instructing bailiffs.
The appeal hearing was attended, and supported by, local councillor Jim Hakewell. Like us, and most people in the town, Jim wants to see the building brought back into use. Given that we are the only potential buyers and the only realistic proposal for this property, it seemed that our very strong case was going to be supported.
The objections put forward by the council, that they didn't want to organ to be removed (even though it is now unplayable) and didn't want the pews removed, were both rejected by the planning inspector. The organ is not significant and "it's removal would not harm the sense of fellowship" she said. It was accepted by the council that after having sight of the professional report from Meadowood Preservation, the pews must be removed in order to prevent woodworm causing structural damage to the building. Our suggestion to salvage what we can, reuse where possible and store those that were viable was accepted as a sensible and pragmatic approach by the planning inspector. However, she raised concerns, concerns, which nobody had raised previously, about replacing the stippled glass in the windows. This, alone, was the reason for her refusing the application.
Because the council refused to engage with us, despite the planning inspector making it very clear that they should, and emails and calls to the Chief Executive Adele Wylie and Deputy Chief Executive, and Head of Planning, George Candler all being ignored, we were forced to submit a s32, requesting that the Planning Inspectorate use their powers under s34 and s35 of the Town and County Planning Act to grant planning permission.
You can email Adele Wylie or call her +44 754 580 3495.
The same goes for George Candler call on +44 749 018 9339.
We took on board all the points raised by the Planning Inspector at the previous appeal and addressed them fully in a new application (having paid a further £695 for the privilege). Needless to say, the council refused to even validate it until we issued an Article 12 notice. After this notice they validated it (3 weeks after submission), but followed their usual pattern of incompetence and ignored it (Site notices didn't go up until 5 weeks after the application, and no neighbour consultations were ever sent. The application reference is 25/01752/LBC. Read it and decide for yourself whether it's better to let the building decay and deteriorate or work with someone willing to sympathetically restore and care for the property.
As was expected, the council made no effort to engage with us. On Friday 9th January 2026 at 2:30pm, just hours before the deadline, I discovered a random individual wandering around the garden in the church. When challenged, he confirmed he was from the council and threatened that unless we give them a 2 week extension on the 8-week statutory period, they would reject the application. Needless to say, we refused since they had done literally nothing for 8-weeks, and so they rejected it. Everyone should be concerned about these inept councils and their incompetent staff, and bullying tactics.
Having checked on multiple other planning applications, this seems to be a tactic the council are now adopting in multiple applications.
Despite the Planning Inspectorate explicitly stating that they would not force the council to grant planning permission, in direct contravention of s34 and s35 of the Town and County Planning Act, and refusing to wait until the result of a complaints investigation, they determined the s32 without due process and in clear breach of the statutory obligations.
The s32 is now likely to be subject to Judicial Review.
After the council's threats to reject the application if we did not allow them an extra two weeks, we are once again forced into a position of incurring additional time and expense in submitting a further appeal due to the council's abject laziness. In no other field would 8-weeks be considered too little time for a professional to read and comprehend an application, asking any questions they need. Only an inept council would do nothing until the 11th Hour, and then beg for more time because they couldn't be bothered to do their job properly in the allowed time.
You could not make up the utter incompetence of the staff at NNC. Despite repeated failings that include sending incorrect notices out, twice, planning officers deliberately and intentionally misleading the public and planning committees, the council once again obstruct the lawful process by making it impossible for the public to comment by sending out neighbour notices with the wrong reference number.
The planning officer who willfully trespassed on our property, causing criminal damage, in the process and has waged a personal vendetta against us since getting involved last summer, has left the council. I can honestly say I have never met a man so lazy and inept and with such a basic lack of understanding of planning law in my life. Cosgrove, has gone out of his way to ensure that his personal agenda and patent dislike of me, drives his decision making rather legal due process, seemingly with the full support of George Candler. One of the last things he did before leaving was reject our application because we refused to kowtow to his lazy and inept behaviour. He is no longer our problem, but is, presumably, now waging his personal vendettas against someone else in another council area.
The Planning Inspectorate have scheduled the hearing for the appeal for 24th June 2026. However, despite the council having a legal obligation to inform residents of the consultation period, they have sent out letters to all residents with the wrong reference number so no public comments can be submitted.
If you try to submit comments on the planning application listed on the letters, you can't as it now says closed for comments. What is open, is the s32 application, which is not a planning application and so shouldn't even be on the councils website, and in any case was decided in January by the planning inspectorate. Because this is the only application available on the council's website, people are submitting, very supportive comments here and we're very grateful for the support of those that have persevered.
If you want to support the application, the correct reference is 6003641 and comments can be submitted via this page. on the Planning Inspector website until 18 March 2026.
On the same day as our appeal is being heard by the Planning Inspectorate, North Northants Council are also having to defend their abject abuse of authority in the High Court. The residents of the village of Titchmarsh have, despite the desperate attempts of NNC to silence them, obtained a Judicial Review. The review will consider the facts that NNC have deliberately and willfully misled the public and elected councillors by withholding documents and evidence. This is exactly the same behaviour NNC have engaged in with our applications.
NNC have screwed us over by persuading the planning inspector that they should only consider the Listed Building Consent, this despite accepting that the application was a joint application for LBC and Change of Use. They have deliberately hidden the second application and sought to disrupt the lawful process. As a consequence we have now sued NNC for a return of the fee that they happily accepted in December but refused to consider the application. Insanely, NNC's legal department have decided to defend the case, but at the same time agreed to refund the fee!!! I really do wonder if there is a single competent person working for NNC in any department.
The planning inspector has allowed NNC to retry matters which have already been decided. The application confirms that we'll keep the organ (until it decays) and have no opening windows, but that since the pews are confirmed to have woodworm they need to be removed. We'll reuse what we can, but the obstinacy of the council resulted in the planning inspector claiming that not enough detail about the woodworm (I could name each one individually and describe their homes if necessary) was provided, despite Meadowood having 25 years experience in the field, and the council having literally none. Insanely, they suggested that a RICS inspector be appointed, this after I pointed out that RICS, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, have nothing to do with woodworm or other treatment processes, and would have nothing relevant to contribute, but then when has basic common sense applied to anything that North Northants Council do?
As such, we're back to square one again. It's getting to the stage where the best option is to sell to developers and let them turn it all in to flats.
Well done NNC! Great way to look after a 300 year part of the town's history.