6. Bluff

And so we come to the real focus of our attention during the last 2 years.

Bluff initially came onto our radar as the twin to our original favoured site.  This good sibling of the Evil Twin was of a similar size, with a similar slope, and also straddled the railway.

However, it was the opposite in so many ways. First, it had only one owner - a blessing after the lengthening lists before. Second, it looked outwards, with views of countryside, rather than inwards to the town centre. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing, as we liked the idea of an urban view from our nugget of countryside, but a view of any kind shouldn't be sniffed at and it's a heck of a view. Third, no one else was laying claim to it. And fourth, and perhaps most importantly, it had been earmarked as green space in the Local Plan for Northampton, and therefore it could not be developed.

Well, we say ‘could not’.

The Local Plan, devised by elected councillors back when the entire area was being laid out, did indeed label it as green space, which should prohibit development – however, the WNDC, unelected and independent, had, quite casually, ignored the Local Plan before, giving planning permission on land that was designated as green space and would certainly not squirm at doing so again.

Added to this though, was a covenant on the land prohibiting development – the site seemed to be perfect.


It took some time to receive a reply from the apparent owner – Network Rail. Six months in fact.

The Land Registry’s copy of the deeds are actually still in the name of the British Rail Board at their old address, which of course doesn’t exist anymore, but let's assume Network Rail do own it for now.

After being redirected to several different offices and departments and back again, we finally received an email dealing with the matter.

They were not interested in working with us, and were actively looking at developing the site.


We obviously contacted them quickly, explaining development wouldn’t be possible, but were told by them that they had contacted the WNDC, who had been encouraging, suggesting they could ignore the Local Plan – no surprise. The covenant holder too, Network Rail said, would not stand in the way of them developing the site.

We cast doubt on their assumption that it was so easy, but suggested a temporary arrangement between us, for just some of the site.  They were only at the very early stages of any development which would be 5 years away at the earliest, and our presence would make the site secure in the meantime, and certainly do no damage.

They could see our point and so asked us for details of what we might do.


At it’s very basic we would need to connect to water and electricity, put in fences, and build the required temporary sheds, stores, and shelters for animals, equipment, and volunteers. A vehicular access would be needed as well - we suggested sharing the current access point to the railway as it only required a fence to be moved – and the rest was merely surface tinkering of the current landscape.
If the agreement was only temporary we’d limit ourselves to the parts of the site most easy to graze with little or no work.

It wasn’t long before we received a curt reply. What we proposed would be classified as development and therefore the current covenant holders would not allow it.

This seemed odd, those covenant beneficiaries would allow the area to be covered in housing, but not allow four temporary sheds?


Which brings us to the question of who these covenant holders were. To understand this we have to explain the history of the site.  You may want to keep notes.

After it had been part of the local ironstone quarry network, it was returned to farmland, until the old Northampton Development Corporation (NDC) began buying up much of the outskirts of Northampton in the 80's to continue the expansion of the town. As part of this, the area was mapped with a new road network and zoning for the possible uses of the land.
It was at this point that the site was labelled as green space, and there was talk of some kind of community hub, with leisure facilities. Whatever plans there may have been for these were scrapped when a nearby Tesco store was built, as it was decided that would do as the hub for the area instead.

The land remained in the Local Plan as green space though, and was a saved policy at the last review, but with no impetus behind anything being done with the land, it has sat empty and forgotten.


Eventually, in 1989, the NDC was packing up it’s work on expanding the town. The remaining land it owned was being parcelled up and given to different organisations. Some of it was passed to the Northampton Borough Council, but the land remaining to be developed around the outside tended to be passed to the newly formed, and quite secretive English Partnerships - a government quango that owned land and promoted development.

In the case of Bluff though, a different route was taken. It was handed to the British Rail Board after details were added to the deeds stating the owners of property NN******* would benefit from a covenant prohibiting any development on it, unless that development related to the operation of the railway.
We’ve no knowledge of any money changing hands, and it seems the British Rail Board didn’t actually have any use for it.

At the time the owners of property NN******** were the NDC, but within days of the deal with British Rail the NN********* property was transferred to Northampton Borough Council.

All remaining assets of the NDC were given to English Partnerships.


The British Rail Board was later disbanded, its assets were then split between BRB (Residuary) and Railtrack. BRB (Residuary) took on disused railway land to sell, while Railtrack concentrated on the railways infrastructure.
As a private company Railtrack went into a frenzy of asset stripping, selling off whatever it deemed no longer necessary to run a rail service, this included railway sidings and other land across the country.

What was left of Railtrack, when it found itself unfit for the purposes of providing a railway infrastructure, was forcibly bought back by the government, and transformed into Network Rail.  They now own the rail infrastructure for the UK including, according to them, the land we are describing.

As it hadn't ever been used as part of rail infrastructure, we had assumed BRB (Residuary) would have owned it.  BRB (Residuary), are still in the process of selling their remaining assets and have an easy to access list of the property they own – the site is not on it, but we did ask them to check their records to be sure. They were very helpful and quick to reply, but do not own it.


Meanwhile, the present government has dissolved English Partnerships, and taken it’s land and assets under the wing of the Homes and Communities Agency – you may have seen their many signs on fields they own surrounding the town.  All of those fields will be developed eventually.


So, who benefits from the covenant?

According to the deeds, it’s the borough council (as owners of NN*******), but Network Rail had suggested it was English Partnerships.

This didn't make much sense to us.  It's normal for a piece of land to benefit from a covenant, rather than an individual – that way it is permanent, rather than until that individual dies – but why would you attach a covenant to a piece of land you owned, but planned to pass on to others within a few days, if you intended to continue benefit from the covenant?  Why not just benefit a small piece of insignificant land (one of the many roadside verges perhaps) that you could retain with no maintenance cost?

And if you did intend to continue to benefit from the covenant, why not mention it clearly in the deeds you are writing?  The law requires any covenant to be clear who benefits after all.


We approached the borough council in the hope they could clarify the situation. Baring in mind the covenant would be worth a considerable sum of money, what did they think?
Over the phone we were told by their legal department that they did indeed benefit from the covenant, but had not been contacted about any development by Network Rail.



With this knowledge we sent a detailed request for information to various councillors in November 2010, asking for their support for a farm and for them to state publicly that they would not allow the land to be developed.
Eager to move on, we added that we needed a reply before January 2011 as our volunteers had lives to lead and the Northampton Urban Farm Project itself, without a clear future, may have to accept defeat and fold.

A request for further information was asked for, as they were looking into the deeds in more detail.

Christmas and New Year came and went, with no reply.  Most of our volunteers left to work on other projects, moved to other towns, found other interests.


The remaining team asked again for a response in late February, to no avail, and so contacted various helpful members of the council to look into it.  Within a week we received an email apologising for the delay, explaining it had been a complicated legal situation, but they now had an answer.

Contrary to their early opinion, they did not now believe the borough council benefited from the covenant.
As part of the overly-complicated agreement when the property NN******** was transferred to the borough council, any covenant that that property benefits from was retained by NDC and therefore passed to English Partnerships and now to the Homes and Communities Agency.

I do hope you're keeping up.

None of this is in the deeds, but in documents that are not publicly available.  It’s worth noting again, the law on covenants demands that they be clear who benefits.


We have since asked the Homes and Communities Agency to clarify their position.  Do they think they benefit from the covenant?   Would they prohibit any development there?  As Network Rail had suggested, would they block our use of the land?


We'll tell more, next time.