Derbyshire Dales council rejects Matlock plans in favour of £12m Levelling Up bid from Ashbourne

At a meeting of the community and environment committee on Wednesday, April 6, members unanimously supported the officers’ recommendation on submitting a bid for money from the Levelling Up Fund’s (LUF) second round.

While there will be disappointment in Matlock about the outcome, and particularly its implications for the Bakewell Road cinema project, the town’s representatives conceded that Ashbourne may be better positioned for a successful bid to be submitted by July.

Councillor David Hughes, of St Giles Ward, said: “I think Ashbourne has got a good set of proposals to bring forward. The three highlighted in the report make a lot of sense, they hang together well and I think they are very strong in relation to the criteria.

“Matlock proposals are not fully worked up as far as I could see. There is more work needed on those, so I think it would be premature to put those proposals in the bid.”

The Ashbourne bid is seeking to change the town’s roadmap to make it more pedestrian friendly, give three central public areas a makeover, and convert a church into a new community centre – for which planning permission and partial funds are already in place.

Rejected Matlock plans for a £4m bid included the creation of a community space in the Bakewell Road development, finishing the surrounding areas to the standard originally envisaged, improving key visitor gateways and cycle infrastructure around the town.

It was decided that all-important flood alleviation works could not be part of a bid given the LUF timescale requires delivery by March 2025.

Council leader Garry Purdy sought to head off any accusations of favouritism in the decision.

He said: “There have been accusations along the route of political bias. We’ve been accused of bias towards Ashbourne and bias towards Matlock, that's nonsense.

“Our group fully backed the cinema project to put extra monies in to make sure that got over the line. We will continue trying to achieve some LUF monies for flood alleviation, at the same time pressuring the responsible authority.”

He added: “I can understand some questions about why Ashbourne has suddenly overtaken 15 years of work by Matlock Community Vision. It's criteria, it's as simple as that.”

The committee agreed a recommendation that officers intensify work on the Matlock proposals so that they be ready for future opportunities with similarly brief application windows.

Coun Purdy said: “In comparison to other towns in the country and what they’ve achieved, we’re way behind and I want to get further forward in that race and I recommend our officers get shovel-ready schemes on their shelf in case there are more grant monies from government.”

Matlock councillors Martin Burfoot and Steve Wain questioned the wisdom of spending up to £175,000 of district taxpayers’ money on consultants to aid the process, but officers said the expertise was not available in-house and it was worth speculating for the potential of accumulating £12m.