Community Conversation

This Thursday evening (30th June) from 7.00pm until 9.15pm sees the Gamesley Community Conversation take place in the GRA Office on Winster Mews.


The community conversation is an event run by Rural Action Derbyshire and Planning with People to look at what the local Core Strategy on planning issues such as housing etc will mean for the area over the next 20 years.


Conversations’ have already taken place in Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith and will run in Whaley Bridge and New Mills during July.


The conversation event will go through a process getting people’s views on the area and also about what they would like to see in the future.


The process is set out in a booklet called : Shaping the Future of Gamesley: Conversation Booklet – which is available at the event or from the GRA Officer or online from : http://www.highpeak.gov.uk/neighbourhood/communityconversations/Gamesley%20booklet.pdf

Please come along on Thursday if you can, or if you can't attend but have any comments or views on the event please let me know.

Housing Growth Options Consultation

As noted previously High Peak Borough Council is consulting the public on where to put about 3,500 new homes before 2026.

Within Glossopdale there are six options up for consideration.

For further information on the proposals for Glossopdale click here

To respond to the proposal’s for Glossopdale via a quick survey please click here

You can also view the full proposals on the council’s website and comment via there system by clicking here.

As is noted in the pages on the main site the council has an exhibition about the growth strategy in the Glossop Market Arcade on Friday, September 4 from 11.00am - 3.00pm and displays at local libraries.

In addition you can also collect information on the proposals at our councillor’s surgery on either Saturday 29th August or Saturday 26th September both from 11.00am until 12.00noon in the GRA Office on Winster Mews.

Councillor’s Surgery

Saturday 29th August from 11.00am until 12.00noon will see this month’s councillor’s surgery taking place.

As usual the surgery will take place at the Gamesley Residents Office on Winster Mews and whilst we haven’t set a theme as such it will be one of two surgeries taking place during the consultation period for the ‘growth options’ consultation of the ‘Joint Core Strategy’ which is due to start on the 27th August.

The consultation which I expect will have a lot of local interest is looking at what land should be set aside for Glossopdale’s share of the 3500 new homes that accordingly to the regional plan need to be built in the period until 2026.

Further details on this will be available here in the next week or so.

House building moratorium saved

Fears of a house building free-for-all in Glossopdale have been allayed after protests from Labour members of the Local Development Select Committee caused the council to object to proposals by the Government Office for the East Midlands to scrap the current block (moratorium) on any new housing allocations within the Glossopdale area except for affordable housing.

Samas Roneo Site - Withdrawal of planning application

Wimpey's have withdrawn there planning application appeal for the Samas Roneo Site on Glossop Road.

This means that there are now no known current plans for the future of the site, and with its current / continued inclusion in the local plan as a site for industrial / commercial use, it may well be some time before there is an alternative use found for the site.

Local Plan Select Committee

Tuesday saw a meeting of the local plan select committee, not much on discussion about Glossopdale, with the two main items been discussions on the design framework for the Station Road area in Buxton, and consideration of additional areas for housing in the Buxton area, so that with the delays caused by the Fairfield Town Green Application (amongst other things) the targets for new house building will still be met.

There was also a discussion around a new guide officers have put together which combines in to one document all the details from various policies around sustainable design and construction.

Now whilst not much use for householders, it dose potentially open the way to pushing for higher standards from developers in terms of sustainability and energy efficiency when the ‘core framework’ of the Local Development Plan is reviewed in the next few years.

Posh nosh for Wood’s Mill ?

Last night saw a meeting of the Development Plan Select Committee, which amongst the various items on the agenda received a report from the consultants working on the Development Plan for the Wood’s Mill Area.

The presentation suggested four options, along with a preferred option combining parts of some of the others, which would see efforts been made to draw a ‘posh’ food shop, such as Marks and Spencer Food or Waitrose to part of the site. With the rest been given over to a mixture of use’s including leisure, residential and office space.

Although following discussion the preferred option was agreed with and recommended to the executive for approval, there was quite a lot of discussion on ‘option 4’ of the proposals which sought to develop a large section of the site for a leisure use such as a cinema or something similar.

However, as part of the report back, and following question from me and other members of the committee, the consultants are not recommending this option on the basis that from existing ‘research’ they feel we are unlikely to be able to attract a developer to do this. Meaning that local aspirations / expectations may be raised for something that cannot be delivered.

The proposals will now go for approval to the council’s executive, and then out to public consultation in January, where it will be interesting to see if local views match the recommendations of the consultants.