Firstly, thanks to you all for signing the petition - the response has been truly overwhelming.

More signature required
If you have signed this petition, but there are other members in your household that haven't, please, encourage as many people as you can to sign - the more people we have the more chance we have.

Updates
Here is our first update, letting you know what has been going on and the next steps

Manor Oak Homes proposal
In case you did not see the boards that were on show, you can view them here. These show the initial proposal from Manor Oak Homes - this proposal means:
 

• An eyesore running up the hill, overlooking the village
• Including a 2 story block of flats up towards the highpoint on the hill
• A large percentage (51%) of affordable homes
• Damage to historical ridge and furrow
• Loss of habitat for local wildlife
• Increase of traffic into and out of the village
• 41 new families registering at the local doctor surgery
• An increase of children into our local school, increasing class size
   

Parish Council engagement
We attended the last Parish Council meeting and asked for help. Initially they refused stating a conflict of interest as they will eventually have to vote on the development.
We pointed out that the Parish Council in Long Buckby have been extremely active fighting a development in their village, even paying for certain things to help with the fight.
Thankfully our local, friendly councillor, Rosie Humphreys, very kindly left the meeting and did some background work, coming back very quickly confirming the legal stance around this and telling the Parish Council that they ARE allowed to get involved. Hopefully this means we will now get a more positive response. We absolutely need this help from our Parish Council.

Watford Road development action group 
An action group has been set up, mainly consisting of residents that back onto the field - so those that are directly affected. We agreed a week ago to engage with a planning expert to help us fight the case. There are costs involved which we have already asked the Parish Council to help with - they need to meet up to discuss this before agreeing any financial support. Worst case scenario we will create a crowdfunding page to help cover these costs.

Planning expert
Our planning expert will be sharing his first stage objections documents with us TODAY. These will be officially submitted tomorrow to Manor Oak Homes as a first step objection notice to their 'consultation' - the idea behind this is just to let them know that there are objections, but not to give too much detail for them to then use against us. It means that later on down the line we can continue to object and push further without too much of a problem.

Next steps
The action group will continue to work in the background, liaising with the planning expert and the Parish Council, to ensure we fight this in the best possible way. We will continue to update you as and when required and may ask for your continued support and help as things develop.
 

Many thanks