High Street Rental Auctions – Proposal to Recommend Wellingborough

Overview

Background information

North Northamptonshire Council was confirmed as one of 11 ‘Early Adopters’ of the High Street Rentals Auction Programme (HSRA) announced by the Government in December 2024, which will result in landlords renting out long-term empty shops to new tenants.

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For full guidance, please visit the Government's HSRA Guidance page.

Last year between 13 October and 9 November 2025 an engagement exercise was carried out to understand the view of the public and interested parties on proposals to designate one town centre from Corby, Kettering, Rushden, and Wellingborough as the first area where a High Street Rental Auction (HSRA) could be used in North Northamptonshire. HSRA is a new power for local authorities and aims to reduce long-term vacancies by bringing back into use vacant premises in our local high streets.

The results of this exercise indicated 92.31% expressed clear support for the scheme, 2.56% opposed the scheme and 5.98% selected the ‘Don’t know’ option.

The previous engagement activity can be viewed on the Your Voice Matters hub.

What’s next?

Following our initial engagement on the HSRA in late 2025 we are proposing to narrow the area in which we may use this as a pilot area. Further investigations have been carried out to determine which area of four town centres: Corby, Kettering, Rushden or Wellingborough we will put forward as the potential first designated area.

Since the initial engagement, work has been carried out to determine which town has the highest percentage of eligible premises following central Government guidelines set which fulfil the Vacancy Condition¹ (the premises must have been unoccupied continuously for 12 months, or for at least 366 days (non-continuously) within a 24-month period).

Below are the results of this investigation:

¹The vacancy condition: the premises must have been unoccupied continuously for 12 months, or for at least 366 days (non-continuously) within a 24-month period. (Section 193, Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023). This percentage reflects how many of the empty premises meet the eligibility criteria. This data was collated on 2 June 2026, from North Northamptonshire Council data.

This shows Wellingborough town has the highest percentage of vacant premises which fulfill the stated government guidelines.

To utilise the legislation, the Council must formally designate a defined boundary within the town centre for the High Street Rental Auction to apply within. Based on the data and areas of need, the following designation is proposed for Wellingborough town centre:

Wellingborough map covering Silver Street, Sheep Street, Church Street, Orient Way, Market Street, Pebble Lane, Midland Road, Cambridge Street, High Street

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To ensure that the pressure on local councils is kept to a minimum, funding has been made available from central government. This payment will assist with the marketing, auction and legal costs incurred as a result of implementing the Regulations. 

Once the engagement closes, we will collate all responses in a report which will be included in an Executive Report at a later date.

Have your say

We want to understand the level of support, and any feedback, of the public and interested parties on proposals to recommend Wellingborough Town Centre to be the first designated area where the High Street Rental Auction programme could be used. We want to hear the views of residents, community groups, businesses, and others with an interest in the area on these proposals.  

The consultation will be open from 22 June until 23.59 on 19 July 2026.

We will collate all responses in a report, for consideration by the council’s Executive, at a later date.

If the HSRA process proves to be successful in this first phase, other areas of North Northamptonshire could be considered for inclusion in the future.

How to have your say

You can tell us your views in one of the following ways:

1. Complete the Online Survey: Use the link at the end of this page to access the short survey

2. Email us at: High.Street.Rental@northnorthants.gov.uk

3. Write to us at: North Northamptonshire Council, High Street Rental Auction Consultation, Swanspool House  Doddington House, Wellingborough, NN8 1BP

Please specify whether the proposal is supported, or not, and include the reasons why.

This survey closes at 23.59 on 19 July 2026.

For information about how consultation and engagement responses are managed, please see the consultation and engagement privacy notice.