'Status and history of Derbyshire town at risk' - Victorian Society opposition to historic headquarters plan

A charity aimed at protecting Victorian buildings has objected to a council’s £132 million plans to turn its historic Derbyshire headquarters into a hotel, a new modern HQ and 50 houses.

The Victorian Society, founded in 1958, has lodged strong objections to major parts of Derbyshire County Council’s plans for its County Hall headquarters in Matlock – housed in the historic former Smedley’s Hydro building.

It says the former Grade-II-listed spa complex, built in 1853 by Richard Smedley, a local industrialist, would suffer as a result of the wholesale regeneration plans.

This comes after the county council filed planning applications with Derbyshire Dales District Council, which will make decisions on the schemes in the next few months. 

The charity writes: “The application seeks to disrupt this complete nature by demolishing and adapting the buildings into separate dwellings/office space and dissolving the historic parklands to make way for redevelopment.”

One of two remaining bridges which span over Smedley Street and connect County Hall to the neighbouring former hydro buildings, built in 1901-1910, must be retained, it says.

The charity says: “To demolish this building would harm the character and significance of not only a Grade II-listed building, but also Matlock as a whole.”

It also wants the second, more modern bridge, built in the late 20th century, to be retained.

The charity says: “To remove these buildings would be to deny future generations this heritage and to diminish the status and history of Matlock.”

It says the bridge, known as Doxey’s Girder Bridge, “exemplifies not only Victorian and Edwardian industrialisation and design, but also embodies Matlock’s rapid expansion in this period and the further expansion of the Hydros in response”.

The society says the planned new council headquarters building, to be built to the west of the glass winter gardens structure, close to Smedley Street, “is unacceptable in its current form”.

It says: “The current design of the proposed council offices impacts too greatly on the Victorian and Edwardian heritage of the site. Its mass is too great and the design incongruous with its surroundings.

“A conversation needs to be had between the buildings, but with the current proposals the conversation has become an argument. The two designs should sit in harmony with each other, each working to enhance the other. 

“This design is currently not an acceptable redevelopment of the site and it does not negate the harm it will do to the historic gardens and parkscape.”

Meanwhile, the plans to build 50 homes on the current extended car park to the south of the site, bounded by existing properties in Woolley Road, are also not welcomed by the charity.

It writes: “The housing proposal in the gardens does not currently reflect the organic nature of the space, and the society recommends a scheme that better reflects the ambling, active nature of a 19th-century winter garden.

“The society strongly urges your authority to refuse this application due to the harm represented by the proposed scheme. 

“The harm of demolishing historic material of a Grade II-listed building does not outweigh the benefit of the change of use. 

“The mass and form of the proposed developments are not sympathetic to the historic environment, and the proposed housing development does not respond to the Smedley Hydro appropriately.”

The application filed by the county council details that the overall site would lose 389 parking spaces through the regeneration, taking it from 597 spots to 208.

In its application, the council says the headquarters at one time accommodated almost 2,000 staff but now daily attendance is just over 400 staff, despite 1,500 people being “contractually” based there, due to a shift to home-working following the pandemic.

It says “many spaces across the complex are unoccupied or underutilised including iconic spaces such as the Winter Gardens”.

The council says operating costs of its County Hall estate are £3.1 million per year, dubbing this a “major drain on limited and shrinking resources”, with more than £170 million needing to be spent on repairs and decarbonisation.

Converting County Hall into a hotel and the other associated developments would lead to an investment into the town of £150 million, the council says.

The new council office building would be five storeys tall – sitting lower than the historic headquarters by one metre- and accommodate 500 staff, containing 5,000 square metres of floorspace.

It would include a bridge link to the historic complex.

There would be 50 parking spaces and flexible parking for 40-50 further vehicles,with “designated local parking” for 155 staff and “promotion of an electric vehicle shuttle”.

It says “cabinet/council democratic space” would be retained in the historic headquarters “and booked by the council as needed”.

The new office does not appear to include a council chamber for all 64 councillors to be able to attend regular meetings.

Its plans for up to 50 homes show a series of five rows of modern timber and brick townhouses, with undercroft garages and glass balconies.

All of the homes would be three-bed houses.

Conversion plans to turn the historic headquarters into a hotel would create 130 full-time jobs, the council says.

The council concludes in its application: “The vision for Smedley’s Hydro is one of holistic regeneration ensuring that a mixed use future will revitalise this important heritage asset and provide value for the town of Matlock. 

“The new build additions are designed to sit sensitively alongside the listed building and grounds, respecting their presence and improving their outlook. 

“The design focuses on the connecting power of landscaping, aiming to bring the site closer to Smedley’s vision of a place which promotes health, wellbeing and vitality.”

The council is looking to appoint a “master developer” to lead the £130 million County Hall project, and this organisation would bear the brunt of the costs, with retained interest from master developers Igloo and Queensberry.

A decision on the appointed master developer is set to be made by January 2026, with £4.24 million set aside for consultants to push the project on.

Council papers released last year said the new HQ could be ready by 2027 but advice had been given to open it at the same time as the hotel, which had an estimated completion date of 2029.

This is said to have shifted to 2030.

Reports published by the authority last year detailed the potential cost of each scheme, with the new eco-friendly council office potentially costing £34 million, the hotel conversion costing £72 million and the creation of homes in a block on the site costing £26 million – a total of £132 million.

These costs are said to have reduced since last year after being reassessed with stronger confidence on what had been forecast as worst-case scenarios, but details of these new prices have not been provided in public documents.