Police checks at Stanage and Longstone

CHECKS were carried out on 54 vehicles in the Longstone Edge and Stanage areas of the Peak District in a crackdown on illegal off-road bikers.
Police checked that all the vehicles they stopped had insurance, tax and MOTs and checked that they were safe.
A total of 47 were off-road motorbikes and officers spoke to them about Operation Blackbrook, which is a long running scheme to reduce illegal biking.

Debate on planned sale of Ripley Town Hall is put back

Councillors have voted to delay a debate about the proposed sale of Ripley Town Hall.

A 1,200-signature petition was handed in before the Amber Valley Borough Council meeting, calling for the hall to be returned to Ripley Town Council.

The borough council was given the 130-year-old building in the 1970s but plans to sell it to help save £2m over the next two years.

Councillors voted to defer a debate until they are closer to a decision. This seems somewhat strange because wouldn’t you have a debate to enable a decision to be reached? Perhaps that is why I am not a councillor – I do not have twisted logic!

What's with the warnings? Ashbourne's got it wrong!

The following extract from a Derbyshire based website suggests that prospective road law abusers should come to Ashbourne.

"Defects were found on school buses during a safety crackdown in Ashbourne.

Operation Safedrive took place at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School and involved police officers and other agencies.

The team inspected 15 buses and coaches as they arrived at school and found two buses with defects that needed to be fixed as soon as possible.

Another bus had to be towed back to the depot for immediate repairs after officers found two wheel nuts which had sheared off.

The team then set up outside Ashbourne Fire Station and handed out a mixture of warnings, notices and fixed penalty notices to:

*6 drivers for using their mobile phone while driving

*3 drivers for having tyre defects

*2 for number plate offences

*1 driver for not being in proper control of the vehicle

*1 for not having a valid MOT

Twenty-eight drivers were stopped for not wearing a seatbelt.

In addition, VOSA issued five immediate and two delayed prohibition notices for defects on vehicles which seriously affected their roadworthiness.

Seven vehicles were also found to have no road tax."

PC Ian Salsbury said: “The check was extremely positive, reassuring the people of Ashbourne of our and our partners commitment to road safety. I would like to thank all the agencies involved in the checks.”

When parking offences carry an unavoidable and substantial fine imposed by lowly wardens, how can it be right that our expensive police force spend time giving "warnings" to motorists?
Surely, the crimes drawn to our attention here require instant and punitive action.

"Book 'em Danno"

Fight to stop sale of Ripley Town Hall

Campaigners have begun a fight to stop a council selling off a town hall in Derbyshire.

Ripley Town Hall was put up for sale by Amber Valley Borough Council in June.

The authority said selling the 130-year-old building and offices next door would help it save £2m over the next two years.

A petition with more than 1,200 signatures calls for ownership of the hall to be transferred to Ripley Town Council instead.

Ripley Town Council said it should be offered the building for free as it gave it to the borough council when the authority was created in the 1970s.

In a statement it said that if the town hall was sold then the police office, the registrar’s office, the town council’s offices, and the council chamber would have to be relocated, which would be “extremely costly and very problematic”.

The council said it was putting the 2.8-acre site on the market because the authority no longer needed such a large building. Then why not lease the excess to other businesses?

The sale of the property will be discussed at a council meeting on Wednesday.

£5.5m moor restoration

A £5.5 MILLION conservation project is under way in the Peak District to restore pollution-ravaged areas of peat moorland. Work is being carried out by Moors for the Future, a partnership led by the Peak District National Park Authority.

Funding has come from a range of bodies, including Yorkshire Water, the National Trust, Derbyshire Council, Sheffield Council, the RSPB and the Environment Agency.

A team from environmental consultants Wildscapes has been involved in the latest phase of the work, one of the biggest conservation projects ever undertaken in the UK. The scheme aims to return 1an area of badly damaged peat moorland to a healthy condition and to protect a much larger area.

Polluted air has been killing off the plants that keep the moors healthy. Overgrazing, summer wildfires and the weather have also contributed to a management problem that, in large moorland areas, cannot be tackled by one organisation alone.

The partnership’s mission statement is to secure the legacy of 8,000 years of moorland life and ultimately to vastly increase the number and diversity of mosses and moorland plants that provide the basis for an important ecosystem.

Wildscapes was selected to deliver the latest phase of work because of their local knowledge of the delicate moorlands, as well as their heather and moorland restoration skills which have been developed from past initiatives, including the Coalfield Heathlands project as well as work for the National Trust.

Their efforts will help stabilise bare peat in some of the most damaged areas of moorland, including Kinder Scout, Bleaklow and Saddleworth, near Manchester.

All bottled up and no where to go

High Peak borough Council have again unanimously rejected resubmitted plans for a large water bottling factory at Cowdale Quarry near Buxton.

Local residents, conservationists and countryside campaigners are celebrating after working so hard to keep this beauty spot protected.

Cowdale is an important part of the buffer zone between the Peak District and Buxton, and crucial for stopping industrial sprawl, noise and light pollution affecting the Peak District National Park.

Chris Sabian is a writer with http://www.peakdistrict.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Follow @pdview

More injuries in Peak District

A 16-year-old student was stretchered from a footpath after breaking his ankle while on a field trip.

The student, from Rotherham, was with a party on an outdoor education trip near Millstone Edge, Hathersage on Friday when he went over on his ankle, causing an open fracture.

Group leaders gave the boy first aid and alerted mountain rescuers. Edale and Buxton Mountain Rescue Teams went to the scene and an Edale team paramedic treated the student at the site, on a rocky footpath.

He was then stretchered to a waiting ambulance and taken to hospital.

The Derbyshire cold Eyre

Mia Wasikowska has admitted that she was surprised by how cold the Derbyshire
moors were during the filming of Jane Eyre.

The Alice In Wonderland actress has the lead role in the new film adaptation
of the Charlotte Bronte novel.

She said that it was so cold, she got hypothermia on the second day of shooting. You should try living here “me duck”.

Tourism promotion row

A ROW is looming over a tourism campaign aimed at attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Staffordshire Moorlands.

Community leaders say the Staffordshire Peak District brand was adopted  to ensure that the Moorlands gets its fair share of national park tourists.

But only one third of the Moorlands falls within the Peak District boundary and opponents fear tourism outlets in other areas, such as Biddulph and Cheadle,  could lose out.

How was the motion passed in the first place?

Former Moorlands District council leader Ron Locker has tabled a motion to Saturday’s full meeting of the district council calling on the authority to ditch the brand and market the Moorlands in its own right.

Volunteer speedwatch a success

POLICE in Hathersage are thanking volunteers for helping to spread the word on road safety.

It is after more than 200 letters have been sent out to motorists found speeding through the area during 2011.

They were found during Community Speed Watch checks carried out by the Hathersage Safer Neighbourhood Policing Team and a team of 27 volunteers from throughout the area.

Between January and September this year a total of 36 checks have taken place as part of the scheme in many different villages including Stoney Middleton, Calver, Grindleford, Bradwell, Foolow, Eyam, Froggat, Curbar and Hathersage.

Community Speed Watch was set up in the Hathersage area in November 2010 to target residents concerns about issues with speeding and to give people a chance to work alongside officers on road safety issues.

Signs, paid for by the Safer Derbyshire Dales Community Safety Partnership, are put up to advise drivers about the checks and anyone caught speeding is sent a letter which advises them about their speed and reminds them about the limit.

Data recorded through the scheme may also help officers to identify locations for future speed enforcement checks.

Dovedale Loos at Risk

Ideas are being sought to help avoid the closure of public toilets at a Peak District beauty spot visited by about a million people each year.

The Peak District National Park Authority, which faces budget cuts of £1.7m by 2015, said the toilets at Dovedale cost more than £17,000 a year.

It wants to hear suggestions from local people and organisations by the end of October.

The toilets are likely to shut in March 2012 if a solution is not found.

They are situated within Dovedale‘s car park, which is privately owned, with the surrounding land belonging to the National Trust.

Elsewhere the park authority own other facilities nearby, such as car parks or snack kiosks which help support the associated toilets, but in Dovedale this is not the case.

Residents of the nearby village of Thorpe, which many visitors pass through on their way to Dovedale, have raised concerns that the closure could increase the numbers using their public toilets.

The answer to me is straight forward. The owner of the car park who collects £00000000000?s a year should provide the toilets as a matter of courtesy. Problem solved.

Derbyshire County Council to pay farmers to clear snow

Farmers with their tractors would be paid a minimum of £200 if they sign-up to help clear snow from rural areas this winter, Derbyshire County Council said.

The authority said it needed help from farmers to remove snow and ice from roads and lanes their gritters could not reach in previous years.

Wouldn’t getting the terminally unemployed to do it be cheaper?

Top farmers’ market returns

THE UK’s second biggest farmers’ market returns this weekend, with over 80 stalls of specialist products and crafts.

Derbyshire Dales District Council’s multi award-winning Bakewell Farmers’ Markettakes place this Saturday, 24 September.

Supermarket sells Chatsworth grapes

Juicy grapes grown and hand-picked in England will be launched by a
supermarket for the first time this week.

A crop of golden yellow fruit harvested from vines on the Chatsworth estate
in Derbyshire will be introduced by Waitrose.

The grapes are the Muscat of Alexandria variety more usually seen in the
sunny climes of Spain, France, Chile and South Africa.

They were carefully cultivated on the Duke of Devonshire’s estate and their
arrival follows an English wine boom that saw vineyards here celebrate record
production, equal to four million bottles, last year.

Derbyshire greats honoured with blue plaques

Members of the public have chosen six of Derbyshire’s “great and good” to be honoured in the county’s 2011 blue plaque awards.

Derbyshire County Council started the scheme in 2009 to celebrate well-known local people.

This year’s winners include Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls-Royce, and Sir Joseph Whitworth, who standardised the industrial screw.

Anyone nominated must have died at least 20 years ago.

The other winners were:

• William Barron of Borrowash – a 19th century gardener who designed the
  gardens at Elvaston Castle.

• Samuel Slater, Belper – known as the father of the American Industrial
  Revolution.

• John Smedley, Lea Bridge and Matlock − regarded as the man who made Matlock. Smedley turned his father’s ailing cotton mill at Lea Bridge into a highly
  successful enterprise.

• Alison Uttley, Cromford and Dethick − an author of more than 100 books,
  Uttley is most famous for the Little Grey Rabbit children’s stories based on her
  childhood at Castle Top Farm, Cromford, where she was born in 1884

Work is now under way to find locations for the plaques.

Internet Costs Police Thousands

The chairman of Derbyshire’s Police Federation has called for phone and internet firms to rethink how much they charge police to access their networks.

Derbyshire Police paid out almost £104,000 in the past financial year to check records during investigations.

The companies said they were only recovering costs and charges were agreed with police in advance.

But Insp Mark Pickard, who has led the federation since February, is calling for a more charitable approach.

Mobile phone and internet records have become increasingly central to police investigations over the past decade.

But phone companies and internet service providers said the cost of making information available to forces was “significant”.

According to the phone companies they cost recover an agreed fee from the police depending on the nature of the enquiry. These fees only cover costs and this is supported by legislation under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

The Home Office said it was satisfied with its current guidance which requires companies to prove their charges are appropriate.

Perhaps the police should recover the costs of an investigation against the guilty party or would that infringe on his/hers human rights?

Live music cafe for former Tansley shop

A CHEF hoping to promote local food is leading a venture to convert a village shop in to a tea rooms.

Hathersage man Oliver Kemp is hoping to create a new cafe in Tansley. The plans could also see local musicians playing at the former shop and post office, at the Knoll.

Mr Kemp hosted a meeting with villagers to discuss his proposals after six residents raised fears about noise, parking problems, loss of privacy and the venue encouraging drunken and anti social behaviour.

The district council granted a premises licence for the venue. Mr Kemp is now set to submit a planning application to convert the building.

The proposals could see a tea rooms created, serving homemade cakes and food with plans to serve evening meals at weekends in the summer and host live music.

Wildfire threat to Peak District

More wildfires could break out in the Peak District if summers get hotter according to the Peak Park Authority.

Fires caused by heat and human carelessness, can damage wildlife, pollute drinking water supplies and disrupt roads.

A national conference is being held in Buxton, to discuss ways of tackling and preventing them.

The Met Office has predicted that climate change could result in wildfires happening more within the next 30 years.

The facts are that for every degree of temperature increase, a 10% increase in rain is needed to compensate. Rainfall is apparantly decreasing by 10%.

To the general public it is hard to explain the risks to moorland when the summer has been so wet but the problem with wildfires is that they burn down into the peat so they don’t actually go out by themselves.

Delegates at Wildfire 2011 will discuss the latest techniques, best practice and research relating to the prevention and suppression of wildfire in the UK.

Edale MRT to the Rescue

A CLIMBER was airlifted to hospital after falling 20ft at Curbar Edge in the Peak District. He was climbing in the Avalanche Wall area when he fell at around 3pm on Saturday. Edale Mountain Rescue Team treated him for lower back pain before carrying him to an air ambulance scrambled to deal with the casualty.

Crew members, joined by members of Buxton Mountain Rescue Team, helped an injured walker in Grindsbrook, above Edale, later in the day. The 24-year-old had slipped while descending into Edale and suffered a dislocated shoulder. Rescuers carried him on a stretcher to an ambulance and he was driven to hospital in Chesterfield for treatment.

As the teams were returning to their vehicles they were informed a 66-year-old walker, from Bournemouth, had collapsed with exhaustion and hypothermia near to Edale Cross.

What would we do without them – all volunteers. Have any of the three rescued made a donation to the MRT coffers? If they haven’t then ought to!

Shake up for National Park

Members of the public will be able to get involved in key decisions over the future of some of Derbyshire’s best loved landscapes after the Government announced changes to the make-up of Britain’s national park authorities.

Pilot schemes are to be launched in the Peak District and New Forest, where direct elections will be introduced for the first time to select some park authority members. If the elections are deemed successful in improving the way those parks are run, they could be extended to other park authorities at a later date.

Define members of the public.

Discovering the hidden treasures of Erewash

The Erewash walking festival, starting this weekend, has a packed schedule of walks over 16 days, visiting some of Erewash’s and Amber Valley’s most beautiful hidden gems.

Most of the walks are close to bus and train routes enabling everyone to get to the start point.

The event kicks off on Saturday with a launch event at Shipley Country Park Visitor Centre, followed by a short circular walk  of about 3.5miles from 10.30am around the park.

In total there are 32 guided walks until Sunday, September 25, catering for both seasoned and inexperienced walkers.

The walks, led by volunteers and members more than 20 partner organisations, are all free and take place in Amber Valley and Erewash boroughs – areas well known for their natural beauty, superb scenery, industrial heritage and attractive towns and villages.

A walk on September 16, called Castles and Coals, will take in Codnor Castle, Langley Mill and the Erewash Valley. Led by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, the eight-mile walk will start out at Codnor Market Place at 10am and take in sites of both historical and wildlife interest.

There are also themed walks around wildlife in Stanley and heritage walks in West Hallam and Butterley.

Other highlights include Round about Alfreton on Monday September 12 and a strenuous exploration of the highlands of the borough on Wednesday September 14 from Alport Heights.

Erewash-based groups involved in leading some of the walks include Erewash Ramblers, Memories of Ilkeston and District Historical Society and the Friends of Kirk Hallam Lake and Meadows.

The West Hallam Rural and Walking Society will be leading a walk around the village on Friday September 23, taking in sights of historical and natural interest.

Many walks are suitable for all the family but there are some walks designed for children, including Points, Posts & Prizes On Sunday September 18 at Shipley Country Park at 10.30am, for which Booking is advised

A comprehensive guide detailing all the walks and events, is available free of charge from Groundwork Derby & Derbyshire by calling 01773 535232

Alternatively pick one up from Shipley Country Park visitor centre or log onto www.gdd.org.uk to download.

To book your free place on a walk call Derbyshire County Council on 08456 058058.

Damien Hirst’s Mythical Creatures Appear at Chatsworth House

Damien Hirst is moving on to mythical creatures, and while they may be unpickled, they are still not quite in pristine shape.

Two new Hirst works will go on public display at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire next week. The newest, Legend, is a winged horse that has been partly surgically flayed, exposing muscle and bone. The other is a unicorn called Myth, with skin removed from its legs.

Hirst said the pieces were a continuation of his interest in the relationship between science and religion. They follow Hirst works such as Hymn, the large anatomical toy and the Virgin Mother, a dissected pregnant woman.

The works will be part of a Sotheby’s selling exhibition of monumental sculpture atChatsworth, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire.

Hirst reckons that mythical creatures are the way to go which confirms the myth that he is off his rocker.

The sculptures up for sale range from the 1930s to the present day and include work by artists including Marc Quinn, Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama, Barry Flanagan and Lynn Chadwick. They are on public display from 16 September to 30 October.

The case for planning reform

The Government’s controversial planning reforms should receive full
support as far as I am concerned. Opposition by groups like the National Trustamounts to “hysteria” in my opinion.

Coalition proposals to simplify the planning process and favour all “sustainable
development” are vital for economic growth.

Critics argue the changes would lead to urban sprawl and the destruction
of Britain’s natural environment and yet a survey of businesses by the British
Chambers of Commerce (BCC) found a majority thought the planning process was a
barrier to growth.

A total of 69 per cent thought decisions on planning were taken on
political grounds, not on the merits of an application, and 54 per cent thought
councils ignored the advice of their planning officers.

To me these survey findings clearly show that the planning process is a
barrier for companies and that, in some cases, it’s holding back the economic
growth we so desperately need.

We need to get the debate on planning reform away from hysteria and back
to common sense. Business people understand that planning has a purpose and
that developers can’t just build anything, anywhere. It’s not a case of
throwing out the rule book to grow the economy at any cost. Yet there’s clear
evidence that the system is too complicated, too costly, and too uncertain.

It creates mistrust among businesses, undermines investment and holds
back our recovery. We all want to protect areas of great beauty and natural
diversity, yet business’s experience of planning shows that the system is a serious
brake on economic growth, prosperity and jobs. It can’t be right that sensible
proposals to reform the planning system are portrayed as changes that will lead
to urban sprawl, environmental degradation and shoddy buildings.

As for the National Trust jumping up and down perhaps they should look at
their own record of development. They have built hundreds of new homes and have
planning permissions to build many more.

They apparently firmly believe that planning reforms should deliver
benefits to communities and the environment as well as the economy. However,
they have ridden rough shod over campaigners who were against their
developments and for which the gain has not been for the local community but
for the National Trust themselves.

The National Trust state that dice are heavily loaded to favour
development and local people simply won’t get enough say – Pot calling the
kettle black isn’t it?

Let us not forget the latest row that has seen the Campaign to Protect
Rural England (CPRE) accused of “gross hypocrisy” after receiving a
£620,000 grant to support neighbourhood planning.

Talk about cake and eat it. It’s gross hypocrisy for them to take
thousands of pounds of taxpayer’s cash to assist with the government’s planning
reforms yet at the same time be shamelessly opportunistic and attack them.

Their credibility is completely undermined and perhaps they should think
about paying their government funding back. But I bet they don’t.

This debate will rumble on but hopefully the Government will stick to its
guns.