From Harborough FM, which these days provides the best local news coverage, reports:
North Northamptonshire Council is to sell off a site in Desborough which has stood derelict for over 20 years.
The authority’s Executive has declared the former Lawrence’s shoe factory site as ‘surplus’ and it will now be put up for sale.
The council inherited the site off Harborough Road from the former Kettering Borough Council, which bought it in 2005 and says today’s decision follows an extensive review of options for it.
Various uses for the area, branded ‘a jungle’ by locals, have been considered over the years, including building a supermarket, community hub or council houses on the site, but none have ever progressed.
I've been over to Desborough a couple of times recently and have been rather taken by this site. The older building, according to my guide to the industrial history of Northamptonshire, dates from about 1860.
Whether the council finds a buyer, and whether the new owner is any more successful in finding a use for it, remains to be seen, but I'm glad I have photographed it in this state.
