New Country Park in Swadlincote gets Planning Permission

On Tuesday 11th April the Planning Committee at South Derbyshire District Council passed 2 applications relating to the site in the Cadley Hill area of Swadlincote.  A new country park is planned as well as pub/restaurant, another restaurant, a golf related retail unit and car parking & access.  It also features cycle and walking paths, hence it's appearance on the blog.

The site has been under development for several years with a municipal golf course being planned for many years.  The golf course will still go ahead but in a reduced size from original plans with an 18 hole course now replaced with 2 smaller 9 hole golf courses with the country park in between.

The illustration shows the cycle paths in purple through the site.

The above illustration is taken from one of the documents held within the planning application information on the SDDC website.  For further information click here to link to the planning application documents.  On this drawing the roundabout in the bottom right hand corner is the roundabout at the Bison concrete factory at the end of William Nadin Way and appears to indicate that there will be a path on the northern side of William Nadin Way which will link to one of the new housing developments near Park Road in Newhall.

This will then form an important part of the link between Swadlincote and Burton.  Further parts of this link are steadily growing.  The below pictures show some of the link from Darklands Lane through to the new Development off William Nadin Way (Cobblestone Drive).  They currently finish at the perimeter of the development about half way down William Nadin Way.

New section of path at the end of Darklands Way looking towards William Nadin Way

Looking back towards Darklands Lane

Whilst the path is not fully linked up and care will be needed crossing Cobblestone Drive it is a positive step in route development.  Meanwhile, there are developments further up the route as along Civic Way in Swadlincote due to redevelopment of the Fire Station.  Read more about the new Community Fire Station development.

Currently the link from Swadlincote town centre in direction of Darklands Road is provisionally signed down the footpath on the north side of Civic Way past the Health Centre then turning through a link next to the Police Station and onto Toumlin Drive.  The path along Civic Way is not wide enough to be a proper shared path and with several junctions it is not ideal in the long term and hopefully increased numbers of cyclists.

The Fire Station development looks to address this with a link along the side of the site and a further link through past the back of the site to Toumlin Drive which will be more freeflowing and possibly make a good link to nearby Eureka Park.

Work done in the Winter and Early Spring

Fortunately the recent Winter was relatively kind to us in South Derbyshire and surrounding area.  Our regular route checks did not find any significant issues although some of the surfaces are worn and muddy in some of the more rural areas, particularly towards Measham.

We have noticed that some work has been done around the cycle paths by Forestry Commission volunteer groups near Castle Gresley and also by Leicestershire County Council between Donisthorpe and Measham.  Much of the trackside foliage has been cut back which hopfully means that the cycle of dropped foliage mulching into the surface an becoming muddy will cease.  The extra light may also help to dry sections out more.

There are also some other sections of path that are starting to show signs of being covered which we may look to improve on a work day such as the section between Swainspark Wood and Spring Cottage.  The tarmacked surface needs brushing back before the foliage is embedded over time.

Aside from the path we have also been looking at signing and have concentrated on the area between Church Gresley, Albert Village Lake and Spring Cottage.  We have put some more destination patches onto new signs.  Regular cyclists in the area will be familiar with the routes but new cyclists and tourists will hopefully find the signing useful.





The next stage of the signing review will concentrate between Conkers Discovery and Moira.  Some of this will be to replace some of the current ageing signs but we are also looking at options for signing the future link to Hicks Lodge Cycling Centre.

Derby Cycling Group produce Tube style cycling map

The Derby Cycling Group has recently produced a novel new map in a similar style to the London Underground tube map to show cycling links around Derby.

The map has different colours to define the perceived quality of the links as shown in the picture below.

For a more detailed look at the map and further links to the Derby Cycling Group, click on this link.