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 Northants Residents Alliance made a request that Northampton Records Office should create a replacement listing for the Northampton Development Corporation’s records, which are held at their office. The original listing was ‘lost’ when the only copy of it was given to English Partnerships, who are now unable to return it. The NDC records are contained in 100’s of boxes; the task of trying to locate particular records without a listing or an index is therefore quite daunting. Sarah Bridges, Chief Archivist at the Records Office has refused the request made by the Residents Alliance under the Freedom of Information Act to provide a proper listing of these important historical records. She has done so on the grounds that the effort to make the listing would exceed the limit of cost that can be incurred under a FOI request, following advice from the County Council’s lawyers. This means that records of NDC Board meetings where unstable building land on slopes was withdrawn from sale in East and West Hunsbury in 1983 can only be found by an extensive search of the boxes. These ‘lost’ records are vital to the safety of local residents See the history of the cover-up that is preventing residents from accessing these records.
We have written to Ms. Bridges to advise her that a team of NRA volunteers will attend the Records Office on Saturday 15th March at 09:00 to begin a public ‘Listing’ exercise. We are vowed to continue with these Saturday morning sessions until we locate the NDC Board meeting minutes and other relevant documentation from 1983 and other years. We are calling for volunteers from our membership to meet with us outside the Northamptonshire Records Office on this day.
The office is located at: Wootton Hall Park, Northampton, NN4 8BQ.
Click here to see a map and directions.
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