Belper Civic Forum

 The Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has dismissed the appeal by Chevin Property against the decision of Amber Valley Borough Council not to allow redevelopment of the building. Chevin Property wanted to replace the building, which started life as a private school c.1830, by a three storey block containing 15 dwellings and build a further block of 4 dwellings.

The Belper Civic Forum campaigned  to protect this historic building within the World Heritage Site and are very pleased with the Inspector’s Report which makes very interesting reading and will provide useful information and precedent should similar applications arise again. For example, in response to the appellants case that decay to the building in recent years had reduced the opportunities for retention and repair the Inspector stated, “In my opinion this amounts to deliberate neglect”.

 The feasibility study on the future of the school building concluded that a mixed community and commercial use, as advocated by the Belper Civic Forum, was likely to be the best option from a financial point of view. It suggested that the scheme would be self financing provided the former car park was developed for housing. The Belper Civic Forum has responded to the associated consultation and our response can be viewed here.Response.The Forum met the County and Borough Councils on June 19th, in order to discuss its proposals and the way forward.

The preparation by Amber Valley Borough Council of the Development Brief for the Meadows Edge area in Belper has been delayed. As a consequence, the Belper Civic Forum has postponed its next members’ meeting (oringinally planned for 16th June 2008) until further notice.

The Civic Trust have created a new website.  www.civicsocieties.org.uk is online and starting to generate traffic.  You will now be able to access the latest news and information on its free public site - no passwords required!  Each Society has a dedicated page that it can upload information to.  There are also online resources and a growing range of information to benefit the Civic Societies movement.  If you haven’t already visited take the time now…

In order to provide more information about the Forum’s Herbert Strutt Project a special web page has been created. The future of the former school is proving to be a very hot topic in the town, over 1800 people have signed our petition to ask for it to be used for community purposes, in less than a month! In addition there is also a petition on the Prime Minister’s web site so that other people, such as former pupils, can make their opinions known. Go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Strutts-Belper/

The children and teachers finally left the old Herbert Strutt school building this morning. The story was covered by BBC East Midlands TV, including interviews with Belper Civic Forum about the future use of the site.  The Strutt School sub-group of the Forum decided this week to use the name “Strutts” for its project for the re-use of the building for mixed community and commercial use. A special web page is being prepared including an on-line petition. In the meantime volunteers will be out getting signatures in Belper on Saturdays March 1st and 8th. A further press release has been prepared that gives a lot more background to the issues.Press release 27th Feb o8

The Aleena Naylor show at 1000 today featured an interview with members of the BCF Strutt School Group about the future of the building. Statements were also provided by Derbyshire County Council and Amber Valley Borough Council.

Members may nominate other members to be officers and committee members of the Belper Civic Forum Executive Committee for the elections that will take place at the AGM on 1st April 2008. Nominations must be sent to the secretary no later than 14 days before that date. You need the consent of the nominee and a seconder. A Nomination form is available to enable you to do this. The form lists all the positions that need to be filled. You may also wish to refer to the Constitution.

Herbert Strutt School

On 3 Dec there was an open meeting of those interested in the Strutt School project. This was to be followed up by a meeting on 8 Feb of those wanting to join the Steering Group for this project or take on specific jobs. See calendar. There has been a lot of activity on this project; for instance on the feasibility brief, discussions with potential users and other interested parties have taken place. Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and the Citizens Advice Bureau have both authorised us to make public their expression of interest in joining the project and possibly taking space in the building.

Planning Applications monitoring -

We do our best to keep an eye on applications going through, but if you notice something in your area or of particular interest or concern please get in touch.

Meadows Edge

We presented the Civic Forum’s alternative vision for the Meadows Edge site to a well-attended public meeting. This was enthusiastically received and following this endorsement we have made the presentation to the council officers who are preparing the council’s Development Brief. We are keen to play a part in this and we are in the process of preparing the Civic Forum’s own vision for publication and distribution. Watch this space!

Youth Group News

Youth group members heard in November that their application for funding to make a BCF film was not successful. The idea has not been completely abandoned - we are looking for other funding sources at the moment.

In December Harry Symonds, a Belper School sixth former and a BCF youth group member, enabled Sarah Laman and Pippa Mansel to go to Belper School and do a presentation about BCF’s alternative ideas for Meadows Edge. Over 30 sixth formers took part and they went on to look at the scale of existing buildings in comparison to possible future large buildings on the site.

Tesco organised an initial event to inform the public about its ideas for developments in Belper on the Meadows Edge. This event was held on 26th and 27th July at the Nailer’s Football Club. The club is away from the town centre and not everyone would have realised the event was taking place.

The Belper Civic Forum organised an “exit poll” of the people who attended. People were asked if they were in favour of Tesco’s proposals as presented at the event. 220 people were asked of whom 196 lived in Belper and Milford. 68% were against, 20% were for and 12% were either undecided or did not answer.