In developmentCommunity-run evidence record.
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Mounts Litter Watch

Community evidence record · The Mounts, Northampton
Statutory guidance this site followsCode of practice on litter and refuseUpdated 10 March 2026
Read the Code of Practice →
Voices

From an acorn

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.

That’s the whole idea behind this — so that’s where it starts.

It always starts with one person getting fed up. One neighbour, on one street, who has walked past the same rubbish so many times they had stopped seeing it — and then one day they didn’t. Who, instead of moaning about it again, got a bag and a picker and went out and did something about it. Nothing clever. Just that.

And honestly, that is all any of this is at the start. One person deciding they are not going to keep waiting for somebody else to sort it out. But it never stays one person. A neighbour comes out the next time. Then another. Before long it is a group. “Me” turns into “us” — and us is a lot harder to ignore.

So don’t read this as one person’s complaint. Somebody always has to be the one who says it out loud — but the feeling behind it isn’t theirs alone. It belongs to everyone who lives here. We all walk these streets. We all feel the same.

Why we’re doing this

This isn’t about one street. Everyone here has one — the one you’ve walked so many times you’ve stopped seeing it. (insert your street here) Whatever you just said to yourself, that’s the street we mean. This is about all of them.

The Mounts is a good place, with good people. But the streets have been let down for a long time now, and everyone here knows it. Ask anyone who has lived here a while and you’ll hear the same thing — it has gone downhill. Bins overflowing. Fly-tips left for weeks. The same few corners fouled again the week after they’re cleared. And underneath all of it, a feeling that nobody who could actually fix it was really bothered.

We’re not prepared to just hand the place over to that — not the people who’ve lived here thirty years, and not the ones who moved in last month. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here; it’s where you live now. And people look after places they’re proud of.

So we started picking up. We started reporting things properly instead of just grumbling. We started writing it down — what we found, when, and what happened after we reported it. Every photo dated. Graded against the Government’s statutory Code of Practice, not against anyone’s opinion. That record is what this whole site is: an evidence base, not a council scoreboard.

What this actually is

This isn’t a one-off. It’s not a big clean-up day that gets a few photos and is then forgotten by the following week. We’ve seen those come and go.

And it isn’t a strategy. It isn’t a task-and-finish group, an oversight board, or another “improving environments” action plan — some tired, boilerplate framework written to fit every neighbourhood in the county, which is exactly why it fits none of them. The sort that gets marked green on a spreadsheet while the same corner stays exactly as bad as it was. We’ve watched those come and go too. The pavement never noticed.

There’s even a colour code for progress on that spreadsheet — red, amber, green. So let’s borrow it. Red: still on the pavement. Amber: promised, not done. Green: actually sorted — and still sorted a month later. Walk The Mounts and count how many greens you find. We’ll wait.

This is residents getting organised and staying organised. We’ll work with anyone who genuinely wants to help — the council, its appointed contractor, the police, volunteers, whoever. Working with people is fine. Waiting quietly and hoping is not. Where the service isn’t good enough, we’re going to say so, show what we’ve got, and keep saying it until it changes.

And we’re keeping a record of all of it. Every fly-tip. Every report, and what came back. When a street falls below the standard and we report it, a public clock starts on the time the council and its contractors legally have to put it right — and we log whether they did. Not to have a go at anyone for the sake of it, but so that this time the improvement is real and it sticks, and nobody can tell us it’s all fine when the dated photos say otherwise. Anyone named here gets a right of reply. Fair, factual, and out in the open.

This includes the landlords

Let’s be honest about something. A lot of our worst spots sit outside houses in multiple occupation — HMOs. That is usually not the tenants’ fault. People come and go, nobody has shown them which day the bins go out, and half the time there’s nowhere proper to put the rubbish anyway.

But somebody is responsible for that house, and it’s the landlord. A licensable HMO has to be licensed by West Northamptonshire Council, and the person holding that licence is responsible for how the property is run — the rubbish included. WNC’s Private Sector Housing and Housing Enforcement team is the body that licenses these properties and enforces the rules. If a house here is putting rubbish on our street and it is unlicensed or badly run, that can be reported to the council — and we do.

You can check for yourself, too. The council keeps a public register of licensed HMOs, and anyone can search it by postcode or address — to see whether a house near you is a licensed HMO at all, and who holds the licence. If a property that should be licensed isn’t on there, that is exactly the sort of thing worth reporting. (Links are at the bottom of this page.)

A landlord taking rent on a house on our street has the same duty to that street as the family next door. We’re not going to pretend otherwise, and we’re not going to look away because someone is making money out of the place. We’ll name the problem, log it, report it, and keep a record of what gets done about it.

To anyone hoping we’ll get bored and stop

Fair enough — we get it. A community that has given up is a lot less hassle than one that is watching.

But we’re not going anywhere. The acorn is already in the ground. Every person who picks up a bag, or sends in a report, or just refuses to look the other way — that is another root down. You can’t tidy that away. It only gets bigger.

Be the next one

You don’t need a badge, or a committee, or anyone’s permission. You just need to care about your own bit of pavement — and then maybe the next bit along.

Report what you see. Come out to a litter pick. Tell us what’s wrong on your street and we’ll get it on the record. Bring a neighbour if you can.

One acorn is easy to ignore. A whole wood isn’t.

The Mounts belongs to the people who live in it. Let’s grow it back. Two minutes is enough to put down a root.
See the evidence base → Report a street (Report It) → Report a suspected HMO →

— Written by residents of The Mounts. If it says what you feel, it’s yours too. Add your name to it.

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