The Chairman of the Friends of Elvaston Castle has issued a heartfelt appeal for support with a petition to help fight plans for a road system in the vicinity of the Elvaston Estate.
Graham Mansey said that the friends were collectively working with The Elvaston Castle Action Group (ECAG) and other community groups and organisations to contact as many organisations as possible to gain wider support to save Elvaston Castle Country Park from having a new road and car parks built within its grounds by Derbyshire County Council (DCC), its owners and the Elvaston Castle Gardens Trust, a limited company and charitable trust formed by the County Council to help to deliver its plans for the Elvaston Estate.
Elvaston Castle Country Park is a 315 acre estate which contains a Grade 11* listed House and Gardens and a designated Local Nature Reserve (LNR). The LNR and the Parkland are also recognised Nature Conservation Areas, visited by hundreds of thousands of people for health, recreation and fitness annually.
Mr Mansey claimed that, despite being cherished by visitors the Estate had suffered from years of neglect by DCC, which he said had sought to dispose of it by leasehold under various schemes he branded as£ "unpopular and inappropriate" citing these has being a golf and hotel complex, time share holidays and pockets of residential housing over the last twenty years, whilst at the same time retaining ownership of the land.
He added that DCC and its Trust now planned to remove the main car park and possibly the Show Ground, around 40 acres of the Park and rebuild them inside the remaining parkland, reducing the size of the site.
The statement also suggested that the authority was proposing to build a new two lane road through untouched fields in what remains of the rest of the Park, culminating in two Car Parks holding around 700/800 vehicles, which would be built directly adjacent to the local nature reserve, on open fields never built upon.
It is understood that, in order to provide a new access to the Park, a roundabout is to be built on the B5014 Shardlow Road, around 200 metres from the main Raynesway/A50 link roundabout. All traffic using the B5010 (including heavy lorries and coaches that use the route daily) will be required to negotiate this roundabout. Mr Mansey said that acceleration, deceleration, braking and gear changes of these vehicles would add to the potential noise and pollution in the area, which, he claimed, would be even greater if hold ups stretch back across the main A50 roundabout on busy days at the Park.
Mr Mansey described the pollution and environmental damage as immeasurable and something that would devastate Elvaston Castle Country Park, and be measures that will contravene declared national climate change targets as well as those of both Derby City and Derbyshire County Councils.
The County Council is understood to have already hired a company to oversee work at a cost of £179,000 to the public purse. but Mr. Mansey accused DCC of ignoring alternative proposals suggested by the Castle Action Group and 10,500 signatures on a public petition against the road plans.
Submissions of support can be sent via e-mail to info @ friendsofelvaston.co.uk, closing the gaps in the e-mail address before sending your message.
He appealed for help to lobby and protest by adding names of any objecting group to a list and by spreading the details of the appeal, claiming the pre-existing support of a number of charities and community groups both locally and nationally.