Your District Council has said a big thank you to everyone who attended our series of public meetings about six possible temporary Traveller sites.
The final meeting in a series of five on Monday this week at Matlock Town Hall attracted the best attendance of all the public meetings, with almost 200 people packed into the Council Chamber and adjoining Committee Room.
For anyone who missed the meetings in Rowsley, Matlock Bath, Middleton-by-Wirksworth and Wirksworth as well as Matlock, there's still a chance for them to have their say until 29 September in the Council's survey
District Council Leader Councillor Steve Flitter, who chaired three of the meetings, said:
"First I want to express our gratitude to the hundreds of people who turned out for this consultation. I have to say I have never seen so many people in the Council Chamber, and it demonstrates the depth of feeling about this very sensitive issue.
"When the Progressive Alliance took over the administration of the District Council just over a year ago we committed to finally solving the authority's legal responsibility to provide proper Traveller sites here in the Dales, something previous administrations had singularly failed to do over many decades. "Our main focus is identifying appropriate permanent sites - and that process is well underway - but in the meantime we need to find temporary options to relieve the pressure on encampments that are currently tolerated due to the legal position, especially the one in Matlock Bath's Station car park.
"I want to stress however that no decisions have been made on any of the possible six temporary sites. The series of meetings was about us, as Leaders and councillors, listening to what local people have to say.
"The next stage is that we collate all those views, together with the survey responses, into a report that will be made public and debated at a future meeting of the Council's Community & Environment Committee, hopefully in November. In the meantime, the search continues for permanent sites that will eventually remove the need for any temporary site options."
Local people should note that contractors will be visiting all six sites in the near future to provide appraisals on the potential cost of providing services, if selected. The proposed possible temporary sites are:
- Car Park, Old Station Close, Rowsley
- Land to south-east of Hopton Works, Middleton Road, Wirksworth, also known as land on the south-west side of Middleton Road, Wirksworth
- Arc Leisure Car Parks, Morledge, Matlock
- Station Yard Car Park, Dale Road, Matlock Bath
- Car Park, Derwent Way, Matlock
- Land to north-west of Cemetery, New Road, Middleton
