About 160 spaces close at Upper Mounts on 1 September and 36 at Newlands, on top of Mayorhold's 1,073: that is 1,269 of the council's 4,050 town centre spaces.
Northampton town centre will lose close to a third of its council parking from Tuesday 1 September, when archaeological trenching closes about 160 spaces at Upper Mounts car park and affects another 36 at Newlands, West Northamptonshire Council announced on 31 July.
That work lands on a town centre already short of a car park. Mayorhold multi-storey, the largest in the council’s estate at 1,073 spaces, has been closed until further notice since 20 July after crumbling concrete was found on one of its internal posts.
Put the three together and 1,269 spaces are out of use. The council’s own Northampton town car parks page lists 18 car parks totalling 4,050 spaces, so that is 31 per cent of council parking in the town centre, from the first day back after the August Bank Holiday weekend.
What is happening at Upper Mounts and Newlands
The investigations are ground works, not building works. The council says archaeological trenching and site investigations will run at Upper Mounts from 1 September ahead of a hybrid planning application for the Greyfriars scheme, taking “up to two months” and requiring approximately 160 spaces to be taken out of use. Upper Mounts holds 310 spaces in total, so roughly half of it should stay open. At Newlands, which has 59 spaces, the council says 36 will be “temporarily affected” while survey work is done.
The stated finish is the end of October. The council adds that, subject to what the investigations find, parts of the affected parking areas “may be able to reopen ahead of the Christmas period”.
The point of the digging is to establish what is in the ground before a planning application is submitted. Greyfriars is described by the council as the largest brownfield regeneration opportunity in Northampton, run as a development partnership between the council and English Cities Fund. The first phase is expected to deliver more than 100 homes on the current Upper Mounts and Newlands car park sites: one to four-bedroom townhouses with private gardens, maisonettes and apartments, with a community garden at the centre, upgrades to Victoria Street and new crossings over Lady’s Lane. The council says it is “exploring opportunities to secure the homes as affordable housing”, which is not the same as a commitment to do so.
Glyn Mutton, development director at English Cities Fund, said the closure “has been carefully considered to minimise the impact, including limiting the closure to affect the least amount of spaces for the minimum amount of time”.
Cllr Kamala Guliyeva, cabinet member for local economy, culture and leisure, said the council recognised “the temporary impact that these investigations will have on parking provision” and that “the short-term inconvenience will help unlock substantial long-term benefits for Northampton”.
The alternatives, and the gap in them
The council names three alternative car parks in its announcement and says temporary signage will direct drivers to them. Their sizes are worth knowing before you set off:
- Grosvenor Centre multi-storey, 810 spaces, opening times posted on site rather than fixed at 24 hours
- St Michael’s multi-storey, 464 spaces, 6am to midnight
- Campbell Square, 28 spaces, 24 hours
Campbell Square is the one to treat with caution. It is a 28-space car park being offered as an alternative to a 1,073-space one, and on a busy Saturday it is not a plan. The council’s own list has larger options it does not mention in the announcement: St John’s multi-storey (485 spaces), Commercial Street (250), Midsummer Meadow (126) and Marefair (83), all open 24 hours.
What it means for you
If you normally use Upper Mounts, expect roughly half of it to be available from 1 September and to be competing for it with drivers displaced from Mayorhold. The practical answer for a long stay is one of the multi-storeys, Grosvenor or St Michael’s, and for those two the opening hours matter more than the space count: St Michael’s shuts at midnight, and Grosvenor’s hours are posted at the car park. If you are parking in the evening, check the closing time before you leave the car, not after.
Two dates are worth putting in the diary. The closures begin on Tuesday 1 September, the day after August Bank Holiday Monday, so the Wall Games street art weekend on 29 to 31 August is not affected by them. And the council’s premium parking zone on Abington Street, George Row, Mercers Row and St Giles Street starts on Monday 17 August, so on-street parking on those four streets will cost 25 per cent more than the streets around them well before the car park work begins.
Nothing in the announcement changes tariffs at the car parks themselves. If you are driving in over the next two months, our Northampton roadworks and travel page tracks what else is happening on the roads, and the Greyfriars application, when it is submitted, will appear in our Northampton planning coverage.
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