Looking Back: The changing face of Northampton town centre
On February 3 1965, Minister for Housing Richard Crossman announced that Northampton was to be one the new towns offering housing to people living in poor conditions in London. Northampton Development Corporation (NDC) marketed the town to people in over-crowded London and Birmingham. Established in 1968, Northampton Development Corporation spent £205m building new housing estates. In 1971, Northampton was home to 130,000 people; by 2012 the census recorded around 212,000 Northamptonians. To keep up with demands of the growing population, the town under-went a transformation. Out went pokey back-to-back streets, factory yards and muddled areas and in came super-modern new shopping centres, new estates, tower blocks and a programme of road widening.