Latest News - October 2010
Jump to: Victory at Cowdale! , Peak District...
Oct 11th 2010 Victory at Cowdale!
We're joining local people, conservationists and other countryside campaigners in celebrating High Peak Borough Council’s unanimous rejection of controversial plans for a water bottling factory at Cowdale Quarry, near Buxton.
We objected to the plans along with residents and other groups including the British Mountaineering Council, the Ramblers, Keep High Peak Green, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and High Peak Badger Group. In all, the council received nearly 300 letters against the application.
Cowdale Quarry hasn’t been quarried since the nineteen fifties and the site has reverted back to nature. The spot is valued by local people for walking, climbing, picnicking and other recreational activities.
High Peak Borough Council did the right thing today, and we’re absolutely delighted. Cowdale is a beautiful landscape in its own right. It’s also part of the buffer zone between the Peak Park and Buxton and crucial for stopping industrial sprawl, noise and light pollution affecting our national park.
We were also worried that the proposals for the bottling plant were just the start of the landscape being carved up, because plans for second phase included a larger 20 hectare industrial estate with extensive offices, business units and car parking.
A great spot of countryside has been saved thanks to local people and good sense from High Peak Borough Council. With such a strong refusal, we’re hoping that developers have got the message and won’t waste their time with an appeal.
Oct 4th 2010 Peak District planning - have your say
You've got until Tuesday 26 October to have your say about the new core strategy for the Peak District National Park.
The Peak District National Park Authority is working on its planning strategy to guide future development in the national park from 2011 to 2026. It will replace the existing Local Plan with a Local Development Framework, which consists of a suite of documents, the first of which is this core strategy. The Local Development Framework is the masterplan against which all planning decisions will be made, and so will be important to everyone living or working in the Peak District. It includes things such as identifying settlements where development may be appropriate, and the scale and type of development. It will also contain policies on conservation, affordable housing, tourism and quarrying.
The Park Authority has been developing the core strategy for a number of years, and we've looked at various drafts – which haven’t proposed any significant levels of development in the national park – and written in with our comments. We disagreed with them where they could potentially restrict affordable housing in smaller settlements, or prevent suitably located small scale renewable energy schemes. However, we supported the restrictions on open market housing (unless delivering conservation benefits) and a more flexible approach to businesses which fit national park purposes.
You can see the core strategy and supporting documents at www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/ldf, and make your comments at http:ldf.peakdistrict.gov.uk before 26 October.
The draft plan and comments from the consultation will be submitted to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in December, and then examined by an inspector, probably in March 2011.
