1. Sandyford

One of the pieces of land we took a good look at was referred to by us as Sandyford.

The key area of this land lies to the west of Towcester Road, alongside the river and canal. A little investigation found it to be currently owned by Bellway Homes and had been part of the land purchased to build around the Old Towcester Road at Cotton End.
Part left undeveloped included what they referred to as ‘the island’, which lies between the canal and river on the eastern side, but the bulk is to the west of the Towcester Road.

When applying for planning permission this was left as ‘flood attenuation’ to protect the development on the flood plain, and would, they said, be heavily planted with trees and landscaped.

As with most developments, the tree planting and landscaping has been forgotten. Developers move on, or have an eye to the future, those living there would never know what had been promised (buying what they see, not what was on a plan), and, with no one left to pursue it, the over-stretched planning enforcement by the council doesn’t know, or want to know, about it. Besides, if anyone did notice, the developers can claim poverty and walk away (once having sold all the property) or pursue alternative planning permission, renegotiating what was previously a necessity.

The general rule of planning permission tends to be an argument over details that no one will ever concern themselves with later.


This land had two major problems for us. The first, and most important, was the fact it isn’t actually large enough in the long term. It could only be a temporary base and therefore wouldn’t be worth spending a large amount of money on.

Secondly, it floods. There’s no use fighting it, the river has flooded and always will. The Nene used to meander around the wide flood plain splitting and reuniting multiple times around Northampton. The shallow water being an ideal place to cross the river historically, is why Northampton exists at all. Bridge Street outside what is now Carlsberg was a series of small bridges, and previously, Phipps brewery had passages for the river to pass through its site.
Carlsberg moved the river and raised the land it sits on so it would no longer be effected by flooding, but the water has to go somewhere so it backs up onto St James and is pushed out onto Far Cotton instead. It flooded in the late 60’s, it flooded in the early 80’s, it flooded in the late 90’s… and then they built more houses on the flood plain.

Hopefully the new flood defences will work upstream – we’ll find out at some point.
The old National Rivers Authority and Environment Agency have had a mantra of efficiency for natural water courses since the war – water must arrive at the sea as soon as possible. Rivers were straightened, deepened, lined, sluices closed, flood meadows dried, habitats lost, the natural system of flooding and meandering, and rivers actually changing their course over time, was a dead duck. No more ox-bow lakes, geographers. Change is something we seem to struggle with.
Not that controlling nature isn’t fine at times... it's an art that needs considered judgement, not blanket rules.

But we digress. This flooding doesn’t make it impossible to farm – in fact the alluvial salts (and wasted excess nitrates from other farms) are washed down with the water and left on the flooded land making it rich and fertile. The grass will be lush and nutritious, hence why the land nearby was grazed by cows into the 90’s – but it can’t be grazed all through the year.
In winter the soft ground will turn to a quagmire, heavy cattle will churn it up, sheep and goats will inevitably get hoof problems, and when a serious floods comes where do the animals go? And our equipment? And what damage to our infrastructure? Or crops?


So our interest in this site was limited.

However, in the short-term, it might be a starting point. We could limit ourselves to a few activities, building up experience and testing different avenues, while we followed up on our other options.

Making this clear to the owners we envisaged a simple deal, occupying the land for a maximum of 5 years, fencing and clearing it, securing and maintaining the site for that short period, before moving on.

Our contact with Bellway Homes was much shorter.

They seemed surprised we knew they owned the land, but made it clear with terse responses to our enquiries. ‘We have plans to develop the land and are not interested in even a short-term agreement.’

Strange.  Flood land to be developed?  That they're supposed to landscape?

There seemed no point in beginning a protracted argument for something so temporary and slight to us, so we left it at that.


Their attitude is not unusual – whenever you see derelict land it’s rare that the owner doesn’t know its state. They’re mostly just waiting to cash in on it’s development value. Receiving an income in the short-term is of little concern, mainly due to their fear anyone renting the land would fight to stay (an unfounded fear if a clear legal agreement is made at the beginning).


Our interest in the site ceased, and we moved on, but an idea still intrigues some of us. To the west of this site, is more derelict land, which extends to the railway viaduct, and from there parkland - nothing more than an old flood meadow - leads you all the way to Duston Mill. A large stretch of land that reaches all the way into the centre of town. This has been grazed before, and as it’s all liable to flooding, development would be unlikely. And that flooding could perhaps be re-utilised, rebuilding sluice gates and flooding it for a few months a year. And perhaps reopening the old curving course of the river, as lakes at least…

The Bellway Homes land would be key though... and a huge amount of money needed to create access... and some parts would be totally open while others private... and security would be very difficult, unless we had an idea for that... and it would be very complicated to pull together and make into a viable plan... and crops would be risky without yet more investment… but... but, it is intriguing.

Setting up a simple urban farm is perhaps complicated enough.