 a gift) the village water supply from the Society of Merchant Venturers. (fn. 368) The following year the council let a contract for ten more houses, although large-scale development remained impossible until the water supply was improved. (fn. 369) More council houses were built in the mid 1950s after this had been done and a sewerage scheme installed. (fn. 370)
Apart from pressing for more local authority housing, the parish council had few major issues to deal with in the 1950s and early 1960s, beyond protesting at the naming of streets and the erection of speed limit signs at the entrance to the village, both of which were felt to be detrimental to the character of the place; (fn. 371) and ensuring that Wicken kept up its strong record in Northamptonshire's Tidest Village competition, in which it won a pink chestnut tree for the churchyard in 1960. (fn. 372) The council objected without success to the closure of the school in 1962. (fn. 373)
The council first became alarmed at the prospect of new housing in 1967, when the Merchant Venturers sold the house and buildings at Manor Farm and the council strongly objected to residential development on the site. (fn. 374) Two years later came proposals for houses in Deanshanger Road and Leckhampstead Road. (fn. 375) In 1975, a year after the parish became part of the newly established South Northamptonshire district, the local member assured the parish council that Wicken was safe from both council and private house-building because of the limited capacity of the sewerage system, added to which it had the shortest housing waiting list in the district. (fn. 376) By the late 1970s, however, as in other villages in the area, both the parish council and residents generally were concerned about proposed house-building (fn. 377) and in the 1980s and 1990s observations to the district council on planning applications became the most important (and most contentious) aspect of the parish council's work. (fn. 378)
The church at Wick Dive is not mentioned in 1086 (fn. 379) bu