Burton Latimer - History & Development: Boundary-Proposals-1965

Report from Evening Telegraph 30 November 1965

MEETING TO CONSIDER BOUNDARY CHANGES - 1965

Jack Benford, a
speaker at the
meeting

Several hundred people packed a cinema bingo hall last night and gave Burton Latimer Urban Council an undisputed go-ahead against boundary changes and amalgamation with Kettering.

They passed a resolution that the Council should be left alone to continue to function as a separate authority, and they showed unanimous support for a referendum to be held in the town over the boundary proposals.

The County Council has proposed that Burton Latimer urban district should be amalgamated with Kettering borough or de-urbanised and incorporated in Kettering rural district.

Burton Latimer Council proposed three alternatives:

To be left alone;

to be enlarged as an urban district to include Barton Seagrave, Cranford, Finedon and Isham;

or to be amalgamated with Irthlingborough and take in Finedon, the Addingtons and possibly Barton Seagrave, and form a new urban district.

Of the three it greatly prefers to be left alone.

"WE CANNOT DO A U.D.I."

Mr O J Benford, popular Burton Latimer barber, told the meeting: "Unfortunately, we can't do a U.D.I. There are many reasons for that. We rely on Kettering for the sewer and for the water supply, and on the County Coouncil for the police and education so we can't have U.D.I.

"We don't want to go into Kettering borough or rural district. What we want is O.J.B."
- his own initials which he later said stood for Others Joining Burton.

Mr Benford said this was a good year to fight for freedom in Burton Latimer. It was 750 years since Magna Carta and 700 years since Simon de Montfort's first Parliament, an "excellent year for Burton people to stand up for their rights."

He put forward what he described as a master plan - a combined operation by all local authorities to retain their autonomy.

'RATES WOULD RISE BY £7'

Mr A F Mutlow, chairman of the Council, said that householders' rates would be increased by an average of £7 a year if Burton Latimer was amalgamated with Kettering borough.

"What Rutland did yesterday we can do tomorrow," he said. "We feel that the majority of people in Burton Latimer want to remain independent. If we get their backing we will go ahead and fight to the last ditch."

The population of Burton Latimer is 4,430. It became an urban district in 1923 and before that was a parish in Kettering rural district. It has a general rate of 10s. 2d. compared with 12s. 2d. in Kettering borough and 10s. 8d. in Kettering rural district.