Statement from Councillor David Hughes, Chair of Ashbourne Reborn Programme Board, 9 May 2025
As Chair of the Ashbourne Reborn Programme Board I would like to thank the Ashbourne residents and business operators for the questions they submitted ahead of our recent board meeting, and for their presence and contributions at the meeting itself. I believe it was helpful for the representatives of the organisations involved in the delivery of Ashbourne Reborn to hear about the issues raised first hand.
Local authorities make meetings open to the public to promote transparency in the decision-making process. As such, the Ashbourne Reborn Programme Board is a regular meeting, which is open for the public to observe, and to submit questions relating to the agenda in advance, so they can receive an answer at the meeting. On this occasion, I took the decision to accept open questions from the floor, in order to better understand the issues that attendees wanted to raise. Going forward, a more structured approach to the public participation section of the meeting will be adopted to manage the time available.
Following the meeting, Board members considered how best to respond to the comments made and identified several actions. While these actions started to be progressed almost immediately, we were unable to issue an earlier update due to pre-election rules.
Following the subsequent County Council election, the Board intends to meet again in early June to provide the opportunity for all partners to be represented, and will discuss progress with actions taken. In the meantime, further engagement has taken place with businesses and the Town Team to better understand some of the issues raised and gather additional information and data for analysis.
Before responding to some of the points made, it’s important to remember that the Ashbourne Reborn proposals originated from businesses and community groups within the town. Ashbourne Reborn is a partnership scheme involving Ashbourne Town Team, Ashbourne Town Council and AshCom, with delivery of the Highways and Public Realm project being led by Derbyshire County Council and the Link Community Hub by Ashbourne Methodist Church.
The timetable for the works was the result of a significant amount of planning and consideration of safe working practices, constraints on time arising from Government funding, budget and contractor resources.
Some of the issues raised have required further consideration by officers at Derbyshire County Council, particularly traffic light phasing and highway signage. Additional temporary car parking signage has also been agreed with the contractor. Other issues, such as the design of loading bays require further investigation by members of the design and implementation team which is currently taking place.
Nevertheless, I can respond to some issues raised now regarding the Highways and Public Realm project, plus add a couple of points:
- Gangs are working full shifts: Galliford Try and their sub-contractors generally work from 7:30am until 4:30pm. There are some instances where they have started work at 5am and therefore have finished earlier. This working pattern enables a proportion of the work to be undertaken in the early morning to fall outside of business hours to enable those businesses affected to operate as normal. Noise issues for residents preclude over-night working, the early start being the limit to what is believed acceptable.
- Since the start of the project we have informed and engaged local businesses: Since the bid was approved in January 2023, we have held a series of public engagement events - in March 23, July 23, November and December 24 - and provided consultation opportunities on related planning applications. Key information about the project has been publicly available since the programme commenced to help businesses plan for the expected period of disruption. From January 2025, a public liaison officer was appointed who has worked directly with businesses in Ashbourne to keep them informed about how they could be affected by the works and support them with practical arrangements like access and deliveries. All town centre businesses have been encouraged to sign up for the regular Ashbourne e-newsletter.
- Town centre car parks remain busy: The impact of the works on visitor numbers to Ashbourne has been raised as a specific concern. Using District Council car parking data as an indicator, Ashbourne car parks have seen an increase in the number of ticket sales between Jan-April 2025 compared to the same period last year. Data analysis and discussion remains ongoing with business partners to better understand the issues across Ashbourne town centre.
As Chair, I believe I can speak on behalf of the Board in saying that what I and they aim for is much improved public realm and new and exciting community resources through the Link Community Hub project at the Methodist Church.
With regard to the Highways and Public Realm project, while disruption is unavoidable due to the nature and scale of the works, the team is committed to working closely throughout the project with local residents and businesses to minimise disruption as far as possible.
To receive email updates, sign up for the newsletter at the District Council website www.derbyshiredales.gov.uk/enewsreg (tick the box for Ashbourne Reborn), or visit the Ashbourne Reborn website www.ashbournereborn.co.uk for the latest news, FAQs and detailed information about the project. To follow on social media, find @AshbourneReborn on Facebook & Instagram.
