St James End, an overlooked community

Overshadowed by its neighbours Duston and the town centre, St James End sits on the west and deprived side of town. 

And unless you’re an eager Saints fan, St James End has little to offer to Northampton residents. 

Whilst observing St James End, much of the high street’s buildings seemed to be widely unoccupied and businesses appear to only be open for a short amount of time.

And the businesses that are there do not receive the highest reviews.

St James End post office regularly recieves bad reviews, with the main critism being that they close earlier than the expected time. One reviewer commented "Every time I turn up the place is shut even though I attend within the times it states on the website."

Another reviewer commented "Closing earlier than expected, stuff very rude and disrespectful."

A survey by the St James Endquirer showed that a majority of people living in Northampton either sometimes or rarely visited the area of St James End. Why is that?

St James End resident Tasha Faulkner has lived in St James End her whole life “There’s nobody there to fight for St James, nobody has had that chance to stand up and say 'i can do that' or 'we can do funding for that'"

photo by Francesca Roche

"We’ve not really had that community direction or leadership or people really listening to what to the community wants”.

The lack of facilites for people to use has also become a huge problem.

“The other problem we have in St James is that we don't have a secondary school"

"All of our young people end up being split up from their primary school friends and then they end up losing those friendships because they don’t have a safe space that they can meet."

St James End is significantly different from the east side of town, where more attention is being paid towards those residents and their needs “They have the Frank Bruno foundation, the children and family centres"

"We have nothing like that on this side of town like that.”

St James End however does have the St James Residents Association, a campaigning association which aims to improve the conditions of St James End for its residents.

The group (which consists of residents and local businesses) have raised money for the improvement of the area and have frequently supported smaller businesses.

Despite this, St James End has a long way to go in becoming a better community.