The Creamery in Hartington that had been producing Stilton in particular for over 100 years was taken over in 2008, the purchaser being one of only two other producers of Stilton in the country. The company admitted buying the factory just to get the benefit of the Hartington creamery contracts and promptly announced the closure of the factory with the loss of 180 jobs. The factory was then asset stripped and land was sold to a developer. In the last couple of years the developer has been formulating his proposals for the erection of 46 houses, of which just 6 were to be low cost houses. This in a village of just 130 houses. Over half of the houses were to be sold at over £300,000 significantly outside the budgets of people living in the low wage economy of the Peak District. The local residents were strongly opposed to the development and a residents’ questionnaire with a remarkably high level of returns confirmed such strong opposition.
A formal applicaton was submitted for this development to the Peak District National Park Planning Authority in Autumn last year. The thrust of the developer’s argument was that in order to make it profitable to build what 6 low cost homes, a number everyone seems to agree was appropriate, he needed to build 39 additional houses. (It transpired he had paid signficantly over the odds for the land – twice as much as the District Valuer’s estimate). He proposed also to place the low cost houses away from the other houses, placing these in front of some proposed business units onto greenfield land. An incredibly popular footpath through a meadow from the village to the river Dove would have had its entire character changed, walkers would have instead been walking to the river through a housing estate.
This was the largest development application ever submitted in the 53 year history of the National Park. Under the Planning Authority’s own guidelines any major development has to meet the needs of the community (by providing extra facilities for the community). What the developer proposed in this regard was not really wanted by the community and was fairly modest in any event, and it could scarcely be argued therefore that the development came within this requirement. Notwithstanding this, suprisingly the officers of the Peak Park recommended acceptance of the development proposal (which at the last minute was scaled down to 39 houses). Many other applicants who have struggled to get permission for a modest extension or to convert a barn will be surprised that the officers were in favour of this proposed major alteration to the character of the village.
At the full meeting of the Planning Committee attended by a hundred or so people, 22 residents were permitted to speak in opposition to the development The application was unanimously rejected with the Chairman giving the grounds as being that ‘a redevelopment on the proposed scale would be disproportionate, out of keeping with the character of the area, and threatening to the social balance of the village’. He added he was glad to hear residents’ general acceptance that a small more gradual redevelopment in character with the village would be preferable. It seems probable now that the developer will come back with a smaller development proposal, which if consisting of no more than 20 hours will probably not run into significant local objections. There must be doubt however how many affordable homes for local people would then be included in such a proposal.
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