Hey folks,

Local politics can feel far away, but right now, decisions at North Northamptonshire Council are shaping Wellingborough’s services, bills, and policing. Here are three key stories in simple language so you can see what’s changing and why it matters.

In May 2025, Reform UK won enough seats to take control of North Northamptonshire Council from the Conservatives, who had run it since it was created in 2021. At the annual meeting on 20 May, Reform’s Martin Griffiths became council leader; he used to lead the old Borough Council of Wellingborough before all the smaller councils were merged.​

This council controls big things that affect daily life here: roads, bins, planning, children’s services, adult social care, and major regeneration projects. When control changes, priorities can shift – for example, how tough they are on developers, what gets spent in town centres like Wellingborough, and how they balance council tax against service cuts. Because Griffiths knows Wellingborough well, there’s a chance our local issues get more attention, but residents will only see the real impact once the new administration starts setting budgets and policies.

Alongside the change in leadership, the council is working on its 2025–26 Budget and Medium‑Term Financial Plan, which sets out how it will raise and spend money over the next few years. The draft papers say the council faces big cost pressures, especially from children’s and adults’ social care and from inflation pushing up the cost of running services.

To balance the books, the plan combines proposed council tax rises (within national limits), efficiency savings, and changes to how some services are delivered. For Wellingborough, this will affect how often roads are repaired, what support is available for vulnerable residents, how quickly planning applications are handled, and how much council tax you pay from April 2025. The council says it is consulting residents, so comments from people here can still influence which savings and investments go ahead.

Another piece in the background is the Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel, which checks the work of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner – the elected official in charge of police and fire services. In early‑2025 meetings, the panel discussed police and fire budgets, performance against crime‑reduction and safety plans, and proposed changes to the “precept”, which is the slice of your council tax that funds these services.

For Wellingborough, this links directly to visible policing in the town centre, response times when you call 999, and the level of fire cover in our area. When the panel questions the Commissioner, it is effectively asking whether the money raised from our bills is delivering the level of policing and fire protection people expect, and whether any precept rises are justified.

That’s it for this week.

If there’s anything you’d like covered in more depth next time – or if you’ve got a tip about something happening locally – just hit reply and let me know.