Once Europe's most contaminated site, now a housing hub in Derbyshire

A further 200 homes could now be built in a Derbyshire village on what used to be one of Europe’s most contaminated brownfield sites.

Derbyshire County Council is set to be given £1 million by the East Midlands Combined County Authority to create a new access to the south of the former Avenue site in Wingerworth.

The council asked for the funding to enable a further 200 homes to be built on the former coking works, which closed in 1992 after 40 years of producing coal and gas and processing tar and sulphuric acid.

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North East Derbyshire District Council approved plans for 469 homes on the site in 2014 and Tilia Homes has now built 252 homes, with the remaining 217 gaining “reserved matters (detailed) approval” in November 2023.

A business case submitted by the county council says an upgraded junction is required where Derby Road meets Mill Lane, just past the Bellway Homes Curzon Park estate, in order for a further 200 homes to be built.

It says work on the junction is set to start in October and be complete by March 2026.

The report says public funding for the scheme is required for the project to proceed and that the new junction would involve traffic lights being installed to control traffic flow.

As it stands the lack of a southern access point and upgraded junction is acting as a “barrier” which is blocking development, the report says.

It details that the upgraded junction would also allow an additional 10 acres of business space to be built and sustainable transport access to the Avenue, including buses.

A report published by the combined county authority, which shows that the project will cost £1.3 million, details: “The Avenue (Wingerworth) is a major regeneration initiative on the site of a former coking plant, already delivering new homes, a country park and sustainable travel connections. 

“The site has two main points of access from the A61 which is the principal road adjacent to the new development. The northern access is in place through a roundabout however the delivery of the southern access has not been delivered to date. 

“This acts as a barrier to the future development of the land associated with the avenue site and constrains the delivery of homes and commercial development. 

“To enable this development, signalisation of the existing junction between the A61 and Mill Lane, will remove the need for third-party land at the same time as providing the required highway capacity for Mill Lane to serve additional development. 

“This development would not come forward without public sector funding to deliver the infrastructure. 

“The delivery of this project through public intervention will benefit the viability case of the housing development leading to the delivery of affordable units and will also lead to the delivery of commercial space offering employment opportunities in the locality. 

“Delivery of the southern access has been stalled for multiple years and without this intervention site delivery and the expansion plans for the homes and commercial floorspace is unlikely to be brought forward. 

“This will lead to remediated land not coming to fruition and the negative impacts of housing and employment space remaining undelivered for local people.”

The Government detailed in 2022 that the Avenue site, by the end of its life, was a “a mess of leaky tanks, pipelines, waste tips, lagoons filled with tar and soil poisoned with cyanide and arsenic”.

After 10 years of remediation work, finishing in 2018, the site was brought back into use with housing and a 220-acre country park – at a cost of £185 million in public spending.