Category: Latest News

Many thanks for attending our “Play Your Cards Right” games evening on Friday 12th June 2026. The event was a sell out and raised the fantastic total of £752 for critical repairs to the East Farndon church. Huge thanks to Steve & Holly, they did an amazing job as games hosts, the Village Hall Committee, the PCC, and brilliant volunteers, who organised such a great event, and the many village residents who donated raffle prizes. The time that our volunteers give and the generosity of support from our village residents are very much appreciated. Please click this link to view photos from this event. ♠️♦️♣️♥️

The Church of St John the Baptist, East Farndon, is managed on day to day basis by the Parochial Church Council (PCC). The PCC is hugely grateful for the ongoing support of the village, especially in relation to fund raising activities for critical building repairs. Please click this link to visit the Church Home Page which has been recently updated with the PCC accounts for the year ending December 31st 2025. Please click this link to read the latest update on the Church critical building repairs and maintenance works, including some photos. From the update, you will see that another £2,016 is needed to repair the rain water soak away system to prevent further damage to the fabric of the building. To help raise some money for this, please consider attending the “Play Your Cards Right” games evening to be held in the Village Hall on Friday 12th June 2026. Please click this link to visit the New Events Page to read more.

Alan Langley gave one of his legendary talks about who lived in East Farndon in 1921. The event took place in the Village Hall on Friday 15th May 2026. Everyone had a fantastic evening and the event was well attended, raising £155 for the maintenance of Marriott Green. Huge thanks to Alan for putting this together and to eveyone who attended.

West Northants Council’s (WNC) Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) has launched and will run from April 1st 2026 to March 31st 2029. The fund has been established as a replacement to the Household Support Fund and aims to ensure that people can access fast crisis support, stable housing assistance and longer-term advice to improve financial confidence and resilience. As the three-year CRF programme develops, WNC will be working on measures to strengthen referral pathways, bring community support services together and improve coordination between local partners. If you need support, or are aware of any others who are in need of crisis support, please find out more by using this link to access the WNC Crisis & Resilience Fund Website.

Many thanks to all of the East Farndon Wombles who gave up their time to litter pick across the village as part of our Village Spring Clean 2026! A large amount of rubbish was collected and the village looks beautiful in the Spring sunshine. Thank you!

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) are in the process of constructing a new Local Plan that will cover the period up to 2043. This new plan is currently subject to a Regulation 18 consultation, which means that organisations, councils and members of the public have the chance to have their say before the new plan is adopted. The consultation closes on March 27th 2026. Click this link to view the formal WNC documents and take part in the consultation process. East Farndon Parish Council (EFPC) will be considering the latest plan at their March 2026 meeting and if you have any comments, please use this link to email our Parish Clerk, Sarah Gresly.

EFPC have been monitoring progress and making inputs into this new plan, and are keeping a very keen eye on how housing development features for East Farndon. In addition, as we are on the border with Market Harborough, EFPC continues to monitor the development of the new Harborough Local Plan. EFPC submitted our drawn East Farndon Village Confines for the new WNC plan, but these are no longer required as the village has been re-classified as a small settlement / hamlet. EFPC made 4 nominations for local green spaces, Village Green, Marriott Green, Church Grounds, Church Burial Ground & Extension. These have all been accepted and are included in the new WNC Local Plan.

Note that the new local plan covers other matters in addition to housing, such as employment, infrastructure, climate, biodiversity, special landscape areas, heritage, flooding, transport etc. The provisions on heritage seem to be largely unchanged from the current provision.

East Farndon Village Confines, Local Green Spaces & Heritage

In the new WNC Local Plan, East Farndon has been classified, following a robust analysis of services and facilities, as a small settlement/ hamlet. This is the smallest settlement size of the four categories set by WNC. Drawn Village Confines are not required for a small settlement / hamlet and WNC regards the whole area as open countryside when considering housing and other development applications. New housing targets are not set for the small settlement / hamlet category. With this change, East Farndon seems to be well protected from new developments, but of course major strategic planning applications could be received, but these will be managed on a case by case basis. East Farndon is also in a special landscape area which offers further protection. As explained above, East Farndon has 4 Local Green Spaces in the new WNC local plan.

Click this link to view our drawn Village Confines, but note that these are not included in the latest WNC Local Plan as explained above: Village Confines Map

Click this link to see more details of our Local Green Space nominations. These are included in the latest WNC Local Plan as explained above: Local Green Space Nominations Map

In the previous WNC Local Plan consultation in 2024, WNC announced that parts of East Farndon are designated as a Special Landscape Area. This was determined by WNC, using their own criteria, versus being requested by EFPC. In responding to the 2024 consultation, EFPC did request that the area was extended up to the county boundary, but this was not accepted by WNC. Click this link to see the map from the 2024 consultation submission: 2024 Special Landscape Area Map

The latest WNC Local plan shows the WNC Special Landscape Area (red striped area on the map). Please click this link to view an extract that shows the impact on East Farndon: 2026 Special Landscape Area Map. EFPC have resubmitted this request for the latest Regulation 18 consultation.

In addition, most people will know that East Farndon has medieval settlement remains in the village and this is a Historic England Scheduled Monument. This can be viewed in map form by clicking this link: Medieval Settlement Remains & Scheduled Monument Map

Major Housing Development

The parcels of land in the West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) spatial options strategy and call for sites documents, identified for potential major housing developments between East Farndon and Market Harborough, remain in the latest / new WNC Local Plan supporting documents. The good news is that all of these areas have been marked as not suitable and therefore will not be going ahead into the new housing areas to be developed for the latest Local Plan. It remains the case that Harborough District Council (HDC) could request these development areas from WNC, even though these areas are not identified in the latest HDC Local Plan. This is unlikely, but East Farndon Parish Council (EFPC) will continue to monitor closely the development of both the WNC and HDC Local Plans, as well as researching and responding quickly to any adhoc / speculative planning applications.

To read the latest on this subject, please click this link to visit our EFPC Housing & Built Environment Page.

Thank you so much to everyone who came to the quiz on Friday evening. It was great fun with an interesting mix of questions from quizmaster Russell and his glamorous assistant Caroline! The evening raised a fabulous £670 for the upkeep of Marriott Green. The winning team was Jess, Tom, Anne, Paul, Jo and Sam – congratulations 🥳🏆 Please click this link to see photos from the Quiz Night and visit our home page to read more about Marriott Green and what’s going on in East Farndon.

East Farndon organises a range of village events to support the people in our community. We are aware that some people find it difficult to attend these events, especially during the cold and dark winter months, and this can leave them feeling isolated and lonely.

Our village has created a contact group that aims to make sure that everyone feels a connection with the community and are supported in attending village events. The contact group, which is made up of village residents, is available for anyone to call for help in getting to and from village events or for simply organising a get together for a cup of tea and a chat.

This initiative is known as “Ask Aimee” named after Aimee, who lives in East Farndon and has inspired the creation of our village contact group.

To get in touch please call 01858 402055 to leave a message and one of our team of East Farndon residents will return your call and set about getting things organised to help where we can. For those who have access, you can also make contact using this e-mail link: email Ask Aimee

East Farndon events are published in the monthly Parish Magazine, on the Village Website and Facebook pages, and posters around the village. As a reminder, click this link to visit our website Village Events Page: https://eastfarndon.org/events

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Sam Beesley has set up an East Farndon WhatsApp group called “Fabulously Fantastic Farndon”. This was set up originally to support the 12 Days of Christmas event that took place last year, but it has developed into a quick and useful way to update residents on events etc. It is a completely personal and private group and not linked to any formal East Farndon organisation. If you would like to be added to this group then please contact Sam. You can use this link to email Sam Beesley.

East Farndon is very fortunate to have various rights-of-way in the parish, which create footpaths across the surrounding countryside. Many of these footpaths run through private land, where the landowner must keep the route visible and not obstruct or endanger users.

Following some recent complaints regarding footpaths, the Parish Council has spoken to various landowners in the Parish and they would prefer that complaints are raised with them first rather than via Street Doctor, to enable them to take appropriate action as soon as possible.

Therefore, the Parish Council kindly asks that if you have any problems with a footpath, in the first instance, can you please raise any concerns with the Parish Council (either email the Clerk at clerk@eastfarndon-pc.gov.uk or contact a Parish Councillor) or, if you feel comfortable doing so, contact the landowner directly. If the landowner does not take appropriate action, the issue will then be reported on Street Doctor by the Parish Council.

Many thanks in advance for your co-operation.