News - Midlands
Northamptonshire
winning formula
Big government and big business have eyed up Northamptonshire and what they see is virgin territory with boundless possibilities for prosperity and growth. Andrew Macleod reports
TAnd so the government pencils in 167,000 new homes for the Milton Keynes and South Midlands area - a nebulous tract that embraces Northampton, Corby, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Luton.
And where will this enormous new population earn its weekly crust? Why, in the new business enterprises drawn to the region byx85the availability of labour created by the massive new housing developments.
Social engineering on this scale is not unknown in the Northamptonshire/Milton Keynes area. After all, a virtually identical vision gave rise to Milton Keynes in the first place, when the first new town initiative was dreamed up after the second world war.
Chris Garden reckons the gold rush is about to start again. He recently joined Northampton Borough Council as regeneration manager, and believes the town - as well as the county - is in for a ride of white knuckle proportions.
"All the ingredients are in place for Northampton to achieve a huge success," says Garden. "We are growing with or without the proposals set out in the Milton Keynes and South Midlands report commissioned by the government."
Northampton is the biggest town in the country, with a plentiful supply of land - including large brownfield sites - ripe for development. Part of the vision is the development of the riverfront, carried out in collaboration with English Partnerships, which will be reminiscent of Docklands in London or Brindleyplace in Birmingham.
"There are no plans drawn up at present, but the river runs right through the centre of the town and the available sites are extremely attractive," says Garden.
Sadly, a large chunk of the available land has come at the cost of jobs, as the cosmetics firm Avon closed its manufacturing plant in Northampton and shipped the work out to a location in Poland.
A similar fate has befallen the Doc Marten manufacturer, Griggs the shoemaker, whose presence in the once-flourishing footwear sector has been reduced to a headquarters operation.
Garden points out: "There will be some new jobs, but principally these sites will be given over to large scale housing development. If we are to ensure we continue to grow we have to make sure the companies we attract will bring the maximum potential to the town."
But there's much more to Northamptonshire than its county town, which is already home to big name employers like Barclaycard, Nationwide, and Carlsberg Tetley.
Kettering, for example, is eager to shout about its achievements - including manufacturing, which provides work for 8,400 people in the borough, and whose main sectors are footwear and clothing, followed by paper, printing and publishing. Trailing some way behind come rubber and plastics, and mechanical engineering.
On the horizon, however, is the North of Kettering Business Development Area, where a huge distribution centre is being proposed by a national company, with the obvious boost to jobs that that entails.
Daventry, too, has a respectable business base, with both Ford and Volvo having sizeable operations in the district - and one of the UK's biggest rail freight depots on its doorstep.
Although it is actually located at Crick, the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) holds a pivotal place in the UK's freight infrastructure - and will grow even more in importance if new plans are approved.
The proposal is to make DIRFT the largest rail-connected logistics park in the country by adding almost 2m sq ft to its existing floor space.
DIRFT's owner, Severn Trent Property, has applied for the additional warehousing and manufacturing space to increase the depot's size to a total of 5.6m sq ft. The terminal is operated by Tibbett & Britten, and handles more than 40,000 units a year.
DIRFT director Jeff Jones says: "Numerous large companies have already located here because of its superb links to strategic road and rail networks.
"As the existing rail-connected space was committed by 2000, approval is now overdue for expansion. With the infrastructure in place the proposals are readily deliverable."
Meanwhile, Wellingborough is earmarked to grow in size by a third, offering hundreds of acres of employment land, and Corby is planning its own rebirth, including a doubling in size, through the agency of its urban regeneration company. (see overleaf)
The county as a whole offers an eclectic mix of sectors and companies - everything from Weetabix and Carlsberg Tetley to Travis Perkins, the UK's biggest supplier of building materials, and the fantastically successful motor sport industry.
There are hopes that food will take off big-time, presenting consumers with a choice of Northamptonshire-branded country fare, including pies, cakes and cheeses.
This Northants "appellation controllxe9e" will take time to establish, but Trevor Foss, a county farmer and member of the newly created Northamptonshire Food Group, believes it will be worth the effort.
What's good for the wine growers of France, the argument goes, should be just as good for the produce suppliers of Middle England.
Foss says: "One of the things we are looking to do is to develop a food brand for Northamptonshire along with the potential for producing specialist goods such as a Northamptonshire cheese, or Northamptonshire bread."
This venture has been given a boost by the participation of the Countryside Agency and the Northamptonshire Partnership, an organisation encompassing local authorities, the Learning and Skills Council, Chamber and Business Link, voluntary agencies, private sector companies, and the university.
Working with the East Midlands Development Agency, these organisations are striving to deliver the six priorities which form the regional economic strategy - enterprise and innovation, the climate for investment, employment and skills, sustainable communities, ICT, and the rural agenda.
Terry Hughes, the partnership's operations manager, says the group's work has been seed-funded by EMDA in anticipation that much larger private resources will be attracted to its work.
So far, so good, says Hughes, who points out that the litmus test will be how successfully the venture gets off the ground. It's early days, yet, since the partnership has only been operational since October last year.
One major project is all ready to fly, and will be considered by the partnership's board this month. The proposed Silverstone Innovation Centre will be a collaboration between the partnership, EMDA, and the British Racing Drivers' Club, to establish the long term future of the performance engineering industry in Northamptonshire.
The sport, and the industry that underpins it, is worth £3600m a year to Northamptonshire, where it provides work for 5,600 people.
Concentrated largely in the county's motorsport valley are 33 per cent of the UK's Formula One contractors, 40 per cent of the world's Formula One engine activity, and 30 per cent of the UK top 20 motorsport engineering firms, including British American Racing, Cosworth Racing, Jordan, and Mercedes-Illmor.
However there has been worrying evidence recently that Japan and Germany are challenging the UK's pre-eminence in the world of motor sport design and engineering - a trend that the partnership would like to stop in its tracks.
Silverstone is an impressive precursor of the now-fashionable cluster concept. As the circuit blossomed in the last century, there grew up in its shadow a whole industry devoted to the creed of precision engineering, world-class design and extreme speed.
This has been a glamorous and lucrative niche for Northamptonshire, which has two circuits - the second, at Rockingham, specialises in US-style Indy racing - as well as an internationally-respected precision engineering base.
Motor racing has also helped clock up massive visitor numbers for the tourist industry, as fans flock to both tracks for a series of high profile events, including the British Grand Prix.
On the subject of tourism, the county also does quite nicely out of Althorp, last resting place of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the location of an exhibition celebrating her life. A recent survey showed that more than 20 per cent of all visitors associated the county with Princess Di and the Spencer family.
But back to Hughes. "Under the Milton Keynes and South Midlands survey, 48 per cent of the proposed housing growth is scheduled for Northamptonshire - specifically Northampton town, and the areas around Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough.
"We are anxious to ensure that the growth in housing is matched by growth in employment opportunities of the right kind, that will take the county's economy forward into the future."
By almost any definition, the right kind of job would certainly include those provided by Barclaycard, which chose Northampton for its headquarters back in 1966 when the credit card was first introduced to the UK.
The town was singled out for the honour for reasons that still apply today - cheaper land and lower wage rates than those available in London.
Like other large firms it was also attracted by good rail and road links, and easy access to Birmingham, Luton, and East Midlands airports.
Links like these will be needed if international trade begins to take off in the way Northampton Chamber hopes. In the next few days, for instance, a Chamber-led mission flies off to Poland and the Czech Republic in search of new pastures.
But international trade cuts both ways. Avon and Griggs have both recognised that there are commercial advantages to shifting production from high wage Britain to low wage Eastern Europe.
Tim Blades, office managing partner with accountancy firm Grant Thornton, has a slightly downbeat view of the immediate future, citing Griggs' decision to shift production overseas, Avon's move to Poland, the closure of operations by British Timken, and McLaren's decision to source its buggies from the Far East.
"But we shouldn't get too depressed," says Blades. "As always, there are opportunities, and well-managed businesses are still making money, but they are having to be light on their feet and on the lookout for opportunities.
"And although the national mergers and acquisitions market may be weak, we are still doing deals locally, though they are at the smaller end of the scale.
He adds: "Now is a good time to be doing deals. I know of one £310m turnover firm that's selling at the moment, and I have two hi-tech companies that will float on AIM this year."
But let's give the last word to Bill Brisbane, managing partner of Roger Tym & Partners, and director of the Milton Keynes and South Midlands Study - one of a series commissioned by the government to examine the potential of a number of areas in Southern England.
"The bottom line is that we believe the area is capable of higher-than-trend economic growth, leading to an additional 293,000 jobs and about 3,666 new dwellings over the next 30 years," says Brisbane.
"It is a very buoyant area, in large part, and the growth will be centred on five and a half areas - Corby, Kettering, and Wellingborough, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Luton, and Bedford. The half is Aylesbury.
"Consultants are now looking at these areas to see how successfully they can handle the levels of growth being forecast, and final reports will be in this month. These will be fed into the government's Cabinet Committee in the summer, when decisions will be made about the quantum and location of growth in Southern England."w
Corby set to iron out its problems
No cinema, no train station, an architectural nightmare. Things aren't great in Corby but a concerted drive is underway to bring new life and investment. Jim Pendrill reports
Corby is something of an anomaly on the south Midlands landscape. Nestled amid Northamptonshire's golden triangle of hi-tech distribution parks is a town that built itself up during the last century on the back of a decidedly age-old product - namely iron ore - which prospectors chanced upon when laying the town's railway in 1870.
The only problem was of course that when the industry fell away in the late 1970s and British Steel closed its steelworks, that the social fall-out was immense. Being trapped inside the dismal architecture of a classic 1960s new town only compounded the problems for its citizens.
Government efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to cure the town's ills have been moderately successful. The town has been successful in attracting new jobs and enterprise and is now home to major employers such as Weetabix, Golden Wonder, Roquette, Peugeot and RS Components (the latter now the town's biggest employer with a 2,000-strong workforce). Even Corus, the inheritor of British Steel's infrastructure, still employs 900 people in the town.
As such the town has seen unemployment fall to levels virtually as low as anywhere in the region, presently standing at just 2.5 per cent.
But other economic and social problems remain acute. For instance, the town may have low unemployment, but it still has low wages too.
The job of turning the town around now rests with Bob Lane, chief executive of Catalyst Corby, an urban regeneration company which has set itself the target of increasing the town's population from 53,000 to more than 80,000.
Lane, formerly head of Speke-Garston Development Company which helped revitalise a great swathe of land to the south of Liverpool near its airport, says the problems he faces in Corby are similar to Speke's - save for the unemployment issue. "There you had jobless levels of up to 20 per cent with all the accompanying issues that brings. Here, my job is more a social, architectural and planning job. For instance, Corby's new town housing is just shot for starters."
Lane's starting point of raising the town's population makes obvious sense. One of its biggest problems is that potential high-spenders who work in the town live outside its borders precisely because there isn't a sufficient quality leisure, retail and housing offer in the centre.
Shopping spend is being lost to Kettering, Peterborough and Leicester. The town has no cinema for its youngsters (and elders). There's a singular absence of executive homes and the town comes right at the bottom of the table for house price inflation over the past 15 years.
To rub salt into the wounds, nearby Kettering is tipped as one of the country's top 10 housing spots in years to come.
Lane admits he is faced with a classic chicken and egg situation, but his plans have been given a massive boost by publication of the government's recent South Midlands Study which earmarked the Corby area as one which could suck up major population expansion in the region, particularly as the area has a high proportion of available brownfield sites.
"A lot of people don't want Northamptonshire to grow. Corby offers the county the chance to grow without any nimby [not in my backyard] problems," adds Lane.
"When we began drawing up our targets we were originally looking at 23,000 extra people for the town. Now Prescott is talking about 28,000 more. The government has reinforced what we are doing."
But just how does Lane break the investment cycle? For him, top of the list is transport - more specifically the reopening of Corby rail station in the centre of town and passenger services (freight services still run in the town, most notably to serve a huge Peugeot distribution depot).
Lane concedes that there probably couldn't be a worse time to be knocking on Network Rail's door for the cash to open up the line again.
"We are realistic given the rail industry's financial woes but in the medium term reopening this line just has to happen for the town and is a major factor against which I will measure my success. If we get this station back open people can be in London in an hour. Virtually everything can follow from that. We are in intensive dialogue with the SRA (Strategic Rail Authority) as we speak."
There has been some recent good news on the road front too with the government giving the go-ahead for the Corby Link Road to the south of the town. Lane and others are already in discussion with landowners and property developers to encourage them to develop adjoining sites and have had an early success with Cofton Developments taking on the old Oakley Vale quarry site. "It's a brave move which is to be applauded. We need more of the same," adds Lane.
Another key plank of Lane's drive is creating general confidence in the town among investors, and especially ensuring they have faith in the planning system. Lane is presently involved in detailed discussions with planners to redraft the town's structure plan and to amend its local plan.
He also knows that marketing will be crucial. "No-one has been marketing the place at all. It's hardly surprising that the place isn't seen as attractive."
Conversely, Lane doesn't see inward investment as the be-all-and-end-all because of the low unemployment. "Besides, there is growth to come from the companies who are here," he adds, "although we do need to diversify more too."
In all Lane likens his challenge to that of a football manager. "I feel like I'm taking over a football team at the bottom of the league. On the one hand you could argue that things couldn't get any worse and so that if we fail to do anything it won't make any difference. On the other we can say to ourselves this is winnable, we can make a difference and we can climb up that league."
However it is clear that Lane will need support from the government - and especially Alistair Darling's transport department - to realise that dreamw
Hidden estate
The South Midlands could be sitting on the best kept commercial property secret in England
If location, location, location really is the criterion by which business decisions should be made, then the South Midlands - which includes a big chunk of Northamptonshire - seems to be on to a winner.
Road, rail, and air links are all within easy reach - and Kettering even claims, somewhat over-excitedly, all-important access to the sea. No, it's not the Kettering Ship Canal, just the good old A14 which opens up a fast route to the East coast ports.
So, why is premium office accommodation in Milton Keynes going for the bargain basement price of £316-£317 per square foot? Or industrial rentals as low as £36 per foot for top quality space?
David Clarke, who works in the Milton Keynes office of Chestertons, says: "There is a lot of office stock on the market at the moment, so it's more of a tenants' market than a landlords'.
"In the three or four months after Christmas things got pretty bad in the commercial property market, but it's picking up now. Businesses are still being attracted here, and internal demand for good space is continuing, with small firms growing and moving to larger premises."
Clarke is acutely aware of the population explosion which is about to engulf the town and neighbouring county, but believes attractive rents will bring in the jobs to keep the new residents gainfully employed.
Rentals of £316-£317 per foot stack up extremely well against London's £345 per foot - or even the rental levels in Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge, and Luton.
He also confirms an on-going demand for large sheds, as multinationals site more and more of their distribution operations in the region - Daimler Chrysler and VW Audi have a huge presence in Tongwell, for example.
"Milton Keynes is lucky to have such a wide spread of industry," says Clarke. "Unlike cities like Birmingham it doesn't have an over-reliance on one or two industries to drive its economy."
Diversity seems to be the key, and the selection of sites available is fairly broad. Perhaps the most impressive of these is the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT), a massive development which, when completed, will extend to 5.6m sq ft.
Andy Gulliford, of joint letting agents Jones Lang LaSalle, says: "A strong, expanding market exists for large scale accommodation with direct rail connections, and DIRFT is perfectly placed to meet this need."
The commercial property scene in Daventry is also thriving. Alistair Powell of Drake & Partners reports completion of the second phase of the Westpoint development at Heartlands, providing 8,700 sq ft, and that a third phase is now planned by Leicester-based Westleigh Developments.
Occupants of the first two phases include the Chartered Accountants' Benevolent Association, Dexel Pharma, Catering Design, and a range of other companies including a US-based concern.
Powell says phase three will provide buildings of 1,500 sq ft and 2,000 sq ft which could be combined into a single unit of up to 6,000 sq ft.
Other Daventry developments include warehousing on the Long March estate, which was let to a German company relocating from Wolverhampton, and the negotiation of a long lease for Travis Perkins. Elsewhere in Daventry, Drake & Partners has also been active on the Royal Oak estate, and at Drayton Fields.
Anthony Price, senior commercial property partner in the Northampton office of Shoosmiths, has a broad view of the commercial property scene in and around the county.
"It's basically a very healthy place to do business," says Price. "It has one of the fastest growing economies in the UK."
The county has no shortage of attractive developments - Grange Park, Swan Valley and Northampton business parks, to name a few - while at Corby the £34bn investment planned for the area will transform the town centre, bring enormous changes to transport links, and result in major housing developments.
Northampton itself provides the opportunity for limited inner city redevelopment, says Price, as redundant industrial land is brought back into use by more modern users.
Demand for logistics sites in the county continues to run high as demonstrated by the fact that Prologis is embarking on what is believed to be the UK's largest speculative warehousing development, coming in at 500,000 sq ft.
Ben Coleman, head of the Northamptonshire office of Lambert Smith Hampton, says the county gains from its mixed economy.
"I have colleagues in the City and along the M4 corridor, and because of the businesses they deal with they are subject to the vagaries of the economy. In Northamptonshire we have a variety of employers, and because we don't have all our eggs in one basket we are reasonably well insulated," says Coleman.
Coleman believes that missing out on the dotcom boom means that the county does not suffer from the over-supply of space that ensued from the sector's abrupt collapse.
"Northampton's economy is very much bread and butter," says Coleman. "The biggest demand for office space comes from local or regional companies looking for 1,500-4,000 sq ft.
"This market has been bolstered by historically low interest rates, and the popularity of self-investment pension plans, which has prompted many people looking after their own affairs to buy small freeholds," he adds.
Coleman argues that although the sub-region has fewer business parks than its southern neighbours, those that it does have are extremely successful. He identifies the Northampton Business Park and Molton Park as major successes.
He puts office rentals at around £315 per sq ft, below the 1990 level - an indication of the UK economy in general. "Rents like that are good for occupiers, but they mean speculative development grinds to a halt, because the returns aren't there," says Coleman.
One of the biggest projects on the anvil now is the possible expansion of Northampton's Grosvenor Centre.
Chris Garden, head of regeneration at Northampton Borough Council, says: "We are in discussions with the owners at present, to effectively double the size of the Grosvenor Centre, taking the total retail space in the town centre up to 700,000 sq ft.
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Big government and big business have eyed up Northamptonshire and what they see is virgin territory with boundless possibilities for prosperity and growth. Andrew Macleod reports
TAnd so the government pencils in 167,000 new homes for the Milton Keynes and South Midlands area - a nebulous tract that embraces Northampton, Corby, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Luton.
And where will this enormous new population earn its weekly crust? Why, in the new business enterprises drawn to the region byx85the availability of labour created by the massive new housing developments.
Social engineering on this scale is not unknown in the Northamptonshire/Milton Keynes area. After all, a virtually identical vision gave rise to Milton Keynes in the first place, when the first new town initiative was dreamed up after the second world war.
Chris Garden reckons the gold rush is about to start again. He recently joined Northampton Borough Council as regeneration manager, and believes the town - as well as the county - is in for a ride of white knuckle proportions.
"All the ingredients are in place for Northampton to achieve a huge success," says Garden. "We are growing with or without the proposals set out in the Milton Keynes and South Midlands report commissioned by the government."
Northampton is the biggest town in the country, with a plentiful supply of land - including large brownfield sites - ripe for development. Part of the vision is the development of the riverfront, carried out in collaboration with English Partnerships, which will be reminiscent of Docklands in London or Brindleyplace in Birmingham.
"There are no plans drawn up at present, but the river runs right through the centre of the town and the available sites are extremely attractive," says Garden.
Sadly, a large chunk of the available land has come at the cost of jobs, as the cosmetics firm Avon closed its manufacturing plant in Northampton and shipped the work out to a location in Poland.
A similar fate has befallen the Doc Marten manufacturer, Griggs the shoemaker, whose presence in the once-flourishing footwear sector has been reduced to a headquarters operation.
Garden points out: "There will be some new jobs, but principally these sites will be given over to large scale housing development. If we are to ensure we continue to grow we have to make sure the companies we attract will bring the maximum potential to the town."
But there's much more to Northamptonshire than its county town, which is already home to big name employers like Barclaycard, Nationwide, and Carlsberg Tetley.
Kettering, for example, is eager to shout about its achievements - including manufacturing, which provides work for 8,400 people in the borough, and whose main sectors are footwear and clothing, followed by paper, printing and publishing. Trailing some way behind come rubber and plastics, and mechanical engineering.
On the horizon, however, is the North of Kettering Business Development Area, where a huge distribution centre is being proposed by a national company, with the obvious boost to jobs that that entails.
Daventry, too, has a respectable business base, with both Ford and Volvo having sizeable operations in the district - and one of the UK's biggest rail freight depots on its doorstep.
Although it is actually located at Crick, the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) holds a pivotal place in the UK's freight infrastructure - and will grow even more in importance if new plans are approved.
The proposal is to make DIRFT the largest rail-connected logistics park in the country by adding almost 2m sq ft to its existing floor space.
DIRFT's owner, Severn Trent Property, has applied for the additional warehousing and manufacturing space to increase the depot's size to a total of 5.6m sq ft. The terminal is operated by Tibbett & Britten, and handles more than 40,000 units a year.
DIRFT director Jeff Jones says: "Numerous large companies have already located here because of its superb links to strategic road and rail networks.
"As the existing rail-connected space was committed by 2000, approval is now overdue for expansion. With the infrastructure in place the proposals are readily deliverable."
Meanwhile, Wellingborough is earmarked to grow in size by a third, offering hundreds of acres of employment land, and Corby is planning its own rebirth, including a doubling in size, through the agency of its urban regeneration company. (see overleaf)
The county as a whole offers an eclectic mix of sectors and companies - everything from Weetabix and Carlsberg Tetley to Travis Perkins, the UK's biggest supplier of building materials, and the fantastically successful motor sport industry.
There are hopes that food will take off big-time, presenting consumers with a choice of Northamptonshire-branded country fare, including pies, cakes and cheeses.
This Northants "appellation controllxe9e" will take time to establish, but Trevor Foss, a county farmer and member of the newly created Northamptonshire Food Group, believes it will be worth the effort.
What's good for the wine growers of France, the argument goes, should be just as good for the produce suppliers of Middle England.
Foss says: "One of the things we are looking to do is to develop a food brand for Northamptonshire along with the potential for producing specialist goods such as a Northamptonshire cheese, or Northamptonshire bread."
This venture has been given a boost by the participation of the Countryside Agency and the Northamptonshire Partnership, an organisation encompassing local authorities, the Learning and Skills Council, Chamber and Business Link, voluntary agencies, private sector companies, and the university.
Working with the East Midlands Development Agency, these organisations are striving to deliver the six priorities which form the regional economic strategy - enterprise and innovation, the climate for investment, employment and skills, sustainable communities, ICT, and the rural agenda.
Terry Hughes, the partnership's operations manager, says the group's work has been seed-funded by EMDA in anticipation that much larger private resources will be attracted to its work.
So far, so good, says Hughes, who points out that the litmus test will be how successfully the venture gets off the ground. It's early days, yet, since the partnership has only been operational since October last year.
One major project is all ready to fly, and will be considered by the partnership's board this month. The proposed Silverstone Innovation Centre will be a collaboration between the partnership, EMDA, and the British Racing Drivers' Club, to establish the long term future of the performance engineering industry in Northamptonshire.
The sport, and the industry that underpins it, is worth £3600m a year to Northamptonshire, where it provides work for 5,600 people.
Concentrated largely in the county's motorsport valley are 33 per cent of the UK's Formula One contractors, 40 per cent of the world's Formula One engine activity, and 30 per cent of the UK top 20 motorsport engineering firms, including British American Racing, Cosworth Racing, Jordan, and Mercedes-Illmor.
However there has been worrying evidence recently that Japan and Germany are challenging the UK's pre-eminence in the world of motor sport design and engineering - a trend that the partnership would like to stop in its tracks.
Silverstone is an impressive precursor of the now-fashionable cluster concept. As the circuit blossomed in the last century, there grew up in its shadow a whole industry devoted to the creed of precision engineering, world-class design and extreme speed.
This has been a glamorous and lucrative niche for Northamptonshire, which has two circuits - the second, at Rockingham, specialises in US-style Indy racing - as well as an internationally-respected precision engineering base.
Motor racing has also helped clock up massive visitor numbers for the tourist industry, as fans flock to both tracks for a series of high profile events, including the British Grand Prix.
On the subject of tourism, the county also does quite nicely out of Althorp, last resting place of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the location of an exhibition celebrating her life. A recent survey showed that more than 20 per cent of all visitors associated the county with Princess Di and the Spencer family.
But back to Hughes. "Under the Milton Keynes and South Midlands survey, 48 per cent of the proposed housing growth is scheduled for Northamptonshire - specifically Northampton town, and the areas around Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough.
"We are anxious to ensure that the growth in housing is matched by growth in employment opportunities of the right kind, that will take the county's economy forward into the future."
By almost any definition, the right kind of job would certainly include those provided by Barclaycard, which chose Northampton for its headquarters back in 1966 when the credit card was first introduced to the UK.
The town was singled out for the honour for reasons that still apply today - cheaper land and lower wage rates than those available in London.
Like other large firms it was also attracted by good rail and road links, and easy access to Birmingham, Luton, and East Midlands airports.
Links like these will be needed if international trade begins to take off in the way Northampton Chamber hopes. In the next few days, for instance, a Chamber-led mission flies off to Poland and the Czech Republic in search of new pastures.
But international trade cuts both ways. Avon and Griggs have both recognised that there are commercial advantages to shifting production from high wage Britain to low wage Eastern Europe.
Tim Blades, office managing partner with accountancy firm Grant Thornton, has a slightly downbeat view of the immediate future, citing Griggs' decision to shift production overseas, Avon's move to Poland, the closure of operations by British Timken, and McLaren's decision to source its buggies from the Far East.
"But we shouldn't get too depressed," says Blades. "As always, there are opportunities, and well-managed businesses are still making money, but they are having to be light on their feet and on the lookout for opportunities.
"And although the national mergers and acquisitions market may be weak, we are still doing deals locally, though they are at the smaller end of the scale.
He adds: "Now is a good time to be doing deals. I know of one £310m turnover firm that's selling at the moment, and I have two hi-tech companies that will float on AIM this year."
But let's give the last word to Bill Brisbane, managing partner of Roger Tym & Partners, and director of the Milton Keynes and South Midlands Study - one of a series commissioned by the government to examine the potential of a number of areas in Southern England.
"The bottom line is that we believe the area is capable of higher-than-trend economic growth, leading to an additional 293,000 jobs and about 3,666 new dwellings over the next 30 years," says Brisbane.
"It is a very buoyant area, in large part, and the growth will be centred on five and a half areas - Corby, Kettering, and Wellingborough, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Luton, and Bedford. The half is Aylesbury.
"Consultants are now looking at these areas to see how successfully they can handle the levels of growth being forecast, and final reports will be in this month. These will be fed into the government's Cabinet Committee in the summer, when decisions will be made about the quantum and location of growth in Southern England."w
Corby set to iron out its problems
No cinema, no train station, an architectural nightmare. Things aren't great in Corby but a concerted drive is underway to bring new life and investment. Jim Pendrill reports
Corby is something of an anomaly on the south Midlands landscape. Nestled amid Northamptonshire's golden triangle of hi-tech distribution parks is a town that built itself up during the last century on the back of a decidedly age-old product - namely iron ore - which prospectors chanced upon when laying the town's railway in 1870.
The only problem was of course that when the industry fell away in the late 1970s and British Steel closed its steelworks, that the social fall-out was immense. Being trapped inside the dismal architecture of a classic 1960s new town only compounded the problems for its citizens.
Government efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to cure the town's ills have been moderately successful. The town has been successful in attracting new jobs and enterprise and is now home to major employers such as Weetabix, Golden Wonder, Roquette, Peugeot and RS Components (the latter now the town's biggest employer with a 2,000-strong workforce). Even Corus, the inheritor of British Steel's infrastructure, still employs 900 people in the town.
As such the town has seen unemployment fall to levels virtually as low as anywhere in the region, presently standing at just 2.5 per cent.
But other economic and social problems remain acute. For instance, the town may have low unemployment, but it still has low wages too.
The job of turning the town around now rests with Bob Lane, chief executive of Catalyst Corby, an urban regeneration company which has set itself the target of increasing the town's population from 53,000 to more than 80,000.
Lane, formerly head of Speke-Garston Development Company which helped revitalise a great swathe of land to the south of Liverpool near its airport, says the problems he faces in Corby are similar to Speke's - save for the unemployment issue. "There you had jobless levels of up to 20 per cent with all the accompanying issues that brings. Here, my job is more a social, architectural and planning job. For instance, Corby's new town housing is just shot for starters."
Lane's starting point of raising the town's population makes obvious sense. One of its biggest problems is that potential high-spenders who work in the town live outside its borders precisely because there isn't a sufficient quality leisure, retail and housing offer in the centre.
Shopping spend is being lost to Kettering, Peterborough and Leicester. The town has no cinema for its youngsters (and elders). There's a singular absence of executive homes and the town comes right at the bottom of the table for house price inflation over the past 15 years.
To rub salt into the wounds, nearby Kettering is tipped as one of the country's top 10 housing spots in years to come.
Lane admits he is faced with a classic chicken and egg situation, but his plans have been given a massive boost by publication of the government's recent South Midlands Study which earmarked the Corby area as one which could suck up major population expansion in the region, particularly as the area has a high proportion of available brownfield sites.
"A lot of people don't want Northamptonshire to grow. Corby offers the county the chance to grow without any nimby [not in my backyard] problems," adds Lane.
"When we began drawing up our targets we were originally looking at 23,000 extra people for the town. Now Prescott is talking about 28,000 more. The government has reinforced what we are doing."
But just how does Lane break the investment cycle? For him, top of the list is transport - more specifically the reopening of Corby rail station in the centre of town and passenger services (freight services still run in the town, most notably to serve a huge Peugeot distribution depot).
Lane concedes that there probably couldn't be a worse time to be knocking on Network Rail's door for the cash to open up the line again.
"We are realistic given the rail industry's financial woes but in the medium term reopening this line just has to happen for the town and is a major factor against which I will measure my success. If we get this station back open people can be in London in an hour. Virtually everything can follow from that. We are in intensive dialogue with the SRA (Strategic Rail Authority) as we speak."
There has been some recent good news on the road front too with the government giving the go-ahead for the Corby Link Road to the south of the town. Lane and others are already in discussion with landowners and property developers to encourage them to develop adjoining sites and have had an early success with Cofton Developments taking on the old Oakley Vale quarry site. "It's a brave move which is to be applauded. We need more of the same," adds Lane.
Another key plank of Lane's drive is creating general confidence in the town among investors, and especially ensuring they have faith in the planning system. Lane is presently involved in detailed discussions with planners to redraft the town's structure plan and to amend its local plan.
He also knows that marketing will be crucial. "No-one has been marketing the place at all. It's hardly surprising that the place isn't seen as attractive."
Conversely, Lane doesn't see inward investment as the be-all-and-end-all because of the low unemployment. "Besides, there is growth to come from the companies who are here," he adds, "although we do need to diversify more too."
In all Lane likens his challenge to that of a football manager. "I feel like I'm taking over a football team at the bottom of the league. On the one hand you could argue that things couldn't get any worse and so that if we fail to do anything it won't make any difference. On the other we can say to ourselves this is winnable, we can make a difference and we can climb up that league."
However it is clear that Lane will need support from the government - and especially Alistair Darling's transport department - to realise that dreamw
Hidden estate
The South Midlands could be sitting on the best kept commercial property secret in England
If location, location, location really is the criterion by which business decisions should be made, then the South Midlands - which includes a big chunk of Northamptonshire - seems to be on to a winner.
Road, rail, and air links are all within easy reach - and Kettering even claims, somewhat over-excitedly, all-important access to the sea. No, it's not the Kettering Ship Canal, just the good old A14 which opens up a fast route to the East coast ports.
So, why is premium office accommodation in Milton Keynes going for the bargain basement price of £316-£317 per square foot? Or industrial rentals as low as £36 per foot for top quality space?
David Clarke, who works in the Milton Keynes office of Chestertons, says: "There is a lot of office stock on the market at the moment, so it's more of a tenants' market than a landlords'.
"In the three or four months after Christmas things got pretty bad in the commercial property market, but it's picking up now. Businesses are still being attracted here, and internal demand for good space is continuing, with small firms growing and moving to larger premises."
Clarke is acutely aware of the population explosion which is about to engulf the town and neighbouring county, but believes attractive rents will bring in the jobs to keep the new residents gainfully employed.
Rentals of £316-£317 per foot stack up extremely well against London's £345 per foot - or even the rental levels in Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge, and Luton.
He also confirms an on-going demand for large sheds, as multinationals site more and more of their distribution operations in the region - Daimler Chrysler and VW Audi have a huge presence in Tongwell, for example.
"Milton Keynes is lucky to have such a wide spread of industry," says Clarke. "Unlike cities like Birmingham it doesn't have an over-reliance on one or two industries to drive its economy."
Diversity seems to be the key, and the selection of sites available is fairly broad. Perhaps the most impressive of these is the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT), a massive development which, when completed, will extend to 5.6m sq ft.
Andy Gulliford, of joint letting agents Jones Lang LaSalle, says: "A strong, expanding market exists for large scale accommodation with direct rail connections, and DIRFT is perfectly placed to meet this need."
The commercial property scene in Daventry is also thriving. Alistair Powell of Drake & Partners reports completion of the second phase of the Westpoint development at Heartlands, providing 8,700 sq ft, and that a third phase is now planned by Leicester-based Westleigh Developments.
Occupants of the first two phases include the Chartered Accountants' Benevolent Association, Dexel Pharma, Catering Design, and a range of other companies including a US-based concern.
Powell says phase three will provide buildings of 1,500 sq ft and 2,000 sq ft which could be combined into a single unit of up to 6,000 sq ft.
Other Daventry developments include warehousing on the Long March estate, which was let to a German company relocating from Wolverhampton, and the negotiation of a long lease for Travis Perkins. Elsewhere in Daventry, Drake & Partners has also been active on the Royal Oak estate, and at Drayton Fields.
Anthony Price, senior commercial property partner in the Northampton office of Shoosmiths, has a broad view of the commercial property scene in and around the county.
"It's basically a very healthy place to do business," says Price. "It has one of the fastest growing economies in the UK."
The county has no shortage of attractive developments - Grange Park, Swan Valley and Northampton business parks, to name a few - while at Corby the £34bn investment planned for the area will transform the town centre, bring enormous changes to transport links, and result in major housing developments.
Northampton itself provides the opportunity for limited inner city redevelopment, says Price, as redundant industrial land is brought back into use by more modern users.
Demand for logistics sites in the county continues to run high as demonstrated by the fact that Prologis is embarking on what is believed to be the UK's largest speculative warehousing development, coming in at 500,000 sq ft.
Ben Coleman, head of the Northamptonshire office of Lambert Smith Hampton, says the county gains from its mixed economy.
"I have colleagues in the City and along the M4 corridor, and because of the businesses they deal with they are subject to the vagaries of the economy. In Northamptonshire we have a variety of employers, and because we don't have all our eggs in one basket we are reasonably well insulated," says Coleman.
Coleman believes that missing out on the dotcom boom means that the county does not suffer from the over-supply of space that ensued from the sector's abrupt collapse.
"Northampton's economy is very much bread and butter," says Coleman. "The biggest demand for office space comes from local or regional companies looking for 1,500-4,000 sq ft.
"This market has been bolstered by historically low interest rates, and the popularity of self-investment pension plans, which has prompted many people looking after their own affairs to buy small freeholds," he adds.
Coleman argues that although the sub-region has fewer business parks than its southern neighbours, those that it does have are extremely successful. He identifies the Northampton Business Park and Molton Park as major successes.
He puts office rentals at around £315 per sq ft, below the 1990 level - an indication of the UK economy in general. "Rents like that are good for occupiers, but they mean speculative development grinds to a halt, because the returns aren't there," says Coleman.
One of the biggest projects on the anvil now is the possible expansion of Northampton's Grosvenor Centre.
Chris Garden, head of regeneration at Northampton Borough Council, says: "We are in discussions with the owners at present, to effectively double the size of the Grosvenor Centre, taking the total retail space in the town centre up to 700,000 sq ft.
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