This ‘new village’ is expected to provide 1,050 homes by 2042
A former Derbyshire airfield and racetrack is the potential location for a new village of up to 4,000 homes, including a new school.
Former RAF base Darley Moor Airfield, home to the Darley Moor Sports Centre and a gliding hotspot, off the A515, sits less than two miles south of Ashbourne and is currently being marketed for sale.
Derbyshire Dales District Council has now revealed that the airfield and associated race track site is its broad location for a proposed new settlement of between 2,000 and 4,000 homes.
The former airfield and race track borders the diminutive hamlets of Edlaston, Wyaston and Hales Green, in an extremely remote area of the district, but sits on a well-used through route between the A50 and Ashbourne.
This “new village” is expected to provide 1,050 homes by 2042, the end of the upcoming new Local Plan, which the council is putting out to public consultation in August.
The 180-acre Darley Moor racetrack is currently being marketed for sale by Savills for an undisclosed fee, with the listing mentioning “long-term development potential” through the district council’s Local Plan.
It says the RAF had used the location during the Second World War up until 1954, with the plot becoming a race track in 1965.
Meanwhile, Bagshaws lists the 35-acre airfield and including the associated farm, hanger, flying centre, cafe and shop have now been sold, pending negotiations, after touting offers between £1.5 and £2 million.
The council says on Darley Moor Airfield – mislabelled Darley Dale Airfield: “The precise boundary, nature and form of the garden community within this broad location will be established through a site-wide masterplan.
“The masterplan will demonstrate how the site can come forward comprehensively and be produced in consultation with key stakeholders, the council and the local community and will include a concept plan and place making parameters which will be incorporated into any future planning applications.
“The masterplan will also include a phasing and implementation strategy, which will show how the rate of development will be linked to the provision of the necessary social, physical and environmental infrastructure.”
The council said the new village plan must have at least 1,500 houses, providing 1,050 by 2042, and have space for expansion for a further 2,500 homes.
This would include a secondary school, health facilities, a local centre for shops and other services, “of a suitable scale to meet residents day to day needs”, along with expanded bus services providing frequent trips to Ashbourne.
It would also include an unspecified amount of business space.
The council says the new village should be an “exemplar of sustainable design and resource efficiency”.
In April, the Local Democracy Reporting Service disclosed that plans from the district council for a new village containing thousands of homes, in the south of the district, were moving ahead, with more potential villages in the works.
The new settlement forms a significant part of how the council aims to meet its housing targets moving forward, largely after this pending new plan, due to the amount of work which will still need to be done to plan an entire new village and associated infrastructure.
Papers had detailed that a plan to see 70 per cent of new homes required in the district could be allocated to this new settlement, to be built by 2040, but this was reduced to 15 per cent.
Consultants had told the council a new settlement would need to contain 4,000-5,000 homes to support a new secondary school, and 5,000-10,000 to enable “self containment”.
They said this overall plan for a new village would just be approving a direction of travel rather than a formal allocation, due to its “embryonic” stage.
Consultants had said a new village could cater for 150 homes per year for the five final years of the plan – from 2035 at the earliest, totalling 750 homes.
They said that by that point, there would be a need for more new villages elsewhere in the district.
The council itself is due to be abolished in March 2028 through Local Government Reorganisation, around the same time it aims to adopt the proposed Local Plan.
Its Local Plan includes 28 new housing sites, outside of what has been discussed previously, which includes seven sites around Ashbourne totalling 1,273 homes, one of which would be a 700-home plot off the A52, around the Peak Gateway Leisure Club.
The district council aims to earmark sites to meet annual housing targets mandated by Government – now totalling 580 homes per year.