Bank holiday weekend in NN12: what's on, what's open, what to know

Hey Towcester 👋

The first May Bank Holiday weekend is upon us — got anything big planned? In the news: our bins might get lonelier, but our Saints are top of the Prem!

Grab a coffee. This one's meaty. Let's get into it.

West Northamptonshire Council is looking at bringing bin collections and street cleaning in-house rather than relying on contractors. Fine. More control, more flexibility — hard to argue with that on its own. But tucked into the same conversation is a far spicier proposal: cutting general waste collections from fortnightly to once every three weeks. The council frames it as improving recycling rates and reducing costs. Most of us will frame it as a black bin that stinks.

Let's be real — three-weekly collections might work for a tidy couple in a cottage. It will not work for a family of five in a terrace on Richmond Road with two kids in nappies and nowhere to store an extra bag. It won't work in the summer heat. It won't work when foxes are already treating bin night like a buffet. The recycling argument only holds up if the recycling infrastructure actually keeps pace, and anyone who's watched their blue bin lid flap open in the wind knows confidence is limited.

Nobody's against better recycling. But "collect less often" isn't a recycling strategy — it's a savings strategy wearing a green hat. If the council wants to bring services in-house and cut collection frequency, that needs proper scrutiny, not a quiet nod through committee. This one's worth watching closely, especially if you've got young kids, limited storage, or a nose.

West Northamptonshire Council has failed to demonstrate it has a five-year housing land supply — and if that sounds like dry planning jargon, let me translate: the council can't prove it has enough land earmarked for homes to meet demand over the next five years. When that happens, the national planning framework tilts the table. Local planning policies carry less weight, and developers with speculative applications — the ones on greenfield sites nobody asked for — suddenly have a much easier ride at appeal.

This isn't theoretical. It's already happening across West Northants, and Towcester sits right in the crosshairs. We've watched field after field along the edges of town turn into housing estates over the past decade, and now the single biggest brake on that process — the council's ability to say "no, we've got enough in the pipeline" — has been kicked away. Developers read planning inspectors' decisions like stock tips. They know the door is open.

What should you expect? More outline applications on land around Towcester and the surrounding villages. More appeals when WNC tries to refuse them. And more approvals that feel like they happened to us rather than for us. The council says it's working to fix the supply position, and fair enough — but fixing it means either identifying more deliverable sites or proving the ones already allocated will actually get built on time. Neither is quick, and developers won't wait politely while WNC sorts its spreadsheets.

If you care about where Towcester grows — and how — this is the single most important planning story of the year. Not a new roundabout, not a contentious shop sign. This. Keep an eye on the WNC planning portal, and when big applications land for sites near you, respond. The consultation window is one of the few tools residents still have, and it matters more now than it has in years.

Here are a few stories that are still relevant, in case you missed them:

Twelve tries. Seventy-nine points. A penalty after the buzzer. Franklin's Gardens got the full experience on Saturday, and if your nerves survived it, congratulations — you're harder than most of us. Saints beat Bath 41-38 in a game that had absolutely no business being that stressful, that entertaining, or that good.

Tommy Freeman helped himself to another hat-trick, because apparently that's just what he does now against Bath. The man is allergic to quiet afternoons. But the headline belongs to Fin Smith, who stood over that penalty with the clock dead, 60,000-odd eyeballs on him (okay, 15,000 — it felt like more), and slotted it like he was knocking a putt in on the back garden. Ice cold. The kind of moment that turns a good season into a special one.

Johann van Graan said he was "gutted". Good. Bath came to spoil the party and very nearly did. Credit to them for making it a contest — but credit to Saints for finding a way to win when it got ugly. Saints now sit clear at the top of the Prem, and the muted celebrations on the pitch afterwards told you everything. This squad knows they've done something important. They also know they're not done yet. Long may that attitude last.

Coming up:

Towcestrians' 1st XI got their league season underway on Saturday but came up short against Yelvertoft, who chased down 181 to win by three wickets.

Towcester batted first after winning the toss and posted 180/6 off 45 overs, with Quintin Allen making 46 off 68 and Robson Kightley adding 41 off 56. Wesley Steenkamp was the pick of the bowlers taking 3 wickets for only 29 runs in his 10 overs. But Yelvertoft chased the target in 42.5 overs and got there with three wickets in hand.

Early season — plenty of cricket left.

Kart Silverstone — the new karting circuit at Silverstone — officially opened last week with Mercedes F1 driver George Russell doing the honours. Silverstone is three and a half miles from Towcester. Whether you've got a racing driver in the family or just want to see what the fuss is about, it's on the NN12 doorstep.

Four stories crossed the desk this week that don't have much in common on the surface — but stack them up and they tell you something real about this corner of Northamptonshire. A local opticians teamed up with the Rotary Club to raise funds for good causes. David Wilson Homes handed £3,000 to a local hospice to keep vital care running. A classic car show rolled into a Brackley care home and lit the place up. And a team of colleagues rallied behind a workmate whose toothache turned out to be a brain tumour diagnosis, throwing themselves into fundraising for brain tumour research.

None of these made the front page. None of them were done for the photo op. That's exactly why they matter. An optician doesn't need to partner with the Rotary Club. A housebuilder doesn't need to write a cheque to a hospice. Nobody asked someone to park a Triumph Stag outside a care home on a Saturday afternoon. People just did it, because that's what neighbours do around here.

We talk a lot about community — sometimes so much the word starts to lose its edges. But this is what it actually looks like: small, specific, unglamorous acts of giving a damn. Towcester, NN12 and surrounds are full of them. If you know of one we should be shouting about, tell us.

Northamptonshire's ladies charity skittles league is bouncing back after numbers dipped post-pandemic — largely because one woman flat-out refused to let it fold. That's how these things survive, isn't it? Not committees or funding bids. One stubborn person who loves the thing too much to watch it disappear.

This is proper grassroots community stuff. A league night in a pub or social club, teams raising money for charity, people who'd never otherwise cross paths sharing a laugh over a wooden ball and nine pins. It's not glamorous. It doesn't need to be. It's the connective tissue that holds places together, and we lost a lot of it during lockdown.

Here's what we don't know: are there any other teams playing in or around Towcester? Used to be? Fancy starting one? If you've got any connection to skittles — playing, organising, or just vaguely nostalgic for it — drop us a reply. We'd love to find out the size of the NN12 corner of this league.

Monday, 4 May 2026 — Two events, one village, proper local:

The Great Weston 5 Run

Lois Weedon & Weston May Day Country Fair

Towcester Library's got some lovely meet-ups each week. Here are just two events, for two completely different crowds happening in one building, doing exactly what a good library should.

First up: Explore a Story, a session for under-5s. If you've got a small person who needs wearing out before lunch, this is your move. Then there's The Craft Box — a drop-in for anyone who wants to bring whatever they're working on and craft alongside other people. No agenda, no curriculum, just company and a table.

Thursday 30 April – Saturday 6 June at Towcester Racecourse

Mixed in the week ahead — looks sunny and warming up into a wet weekend. Cloud and rain move in over the weekend, cooling us back down again to around 12°C. Looks a bit wet for the bank holiday weekend…those library events are sounding pretty good right now!

Two big local milestones landing in the same week — the Relief Road finally opening and the Greyhound Derby kicking off.

The Relief Road has been promised, delayed, and re-promised so many times that some residents probably stopped believing it would happen. This time it looks real. Next week, Watling Street traffic — assuming it holds — will be the test.

And the Derby? Towcester Racecourse has hosted this event since 2021 and the contract runs through at least 2026. That's now five years of bringing one of greyhound racing's biggest prizes to NN12. Whether you're into the sport or not, it puts Towcester on the map in a way few local things do.

If you've never been — go. At least once. It's a night out, it's local, and you'll be supporting a venue that brings proper events to the area.

If something in this issue made you think, forward it to one friend in NN12. If nothing did, forward it to someone in Milton Keynes and let them feel smug about their fortnightly collections while they still can.

Got a tip, a rant, or your best "aged poorly" moment? Hit reply. We read everything.

Stay warm, stay toasty. 🧇

— Atlas & Lee, somewhere in NN12