Traveller site plan prompts disabled parking concern

Concerns have been expressed over how plans to hand over part of a popular Derbyshire car park to two local traveller families could impact on access to a creative space for disabled people.

The Old Station Close car park in Rowsley is one of four sites Derbyshire Dales District Council recently put forward as temporary solutions to a decades-long dispute over where to allocate the families a permanent space in the area.

The sites, which also include Matlock Bath car park, Matlock's Derwent Way car park and land in Middleton, would be handed over for two years on a seasonal basis.

However the Rowsley car park is used by visitors to the Level Arts Centre, a disabled charity that exhibits the work of disabled artists and hosts accessible arts classes.

Lydia Parker's daughter Elizabeth, from Buxton, has attended the centre for a year.

The 21-year-old is sight-impaired, has severe learning difficulties and finds communication challenging.

Attending the performance workshop once a week, which features a mix of acting, singing and dancing, is something she sees as "a chance to be free".

Lydia and other parents say the nearest alternative car park is on the other side of a busy road and trying to cross it with vulnerable people can be like "taking your life in your hands".

"When we get here we need somewhere to park, and it needs to be close by and it needs to be safe," she said.

"The council should be celebrating the fact they've got this facility here and giving it as much support as they can to make it as accessible as it can be.

"Accessibility should not just start when people walk through the door here, it needs to be a whole journey."

Lydia's concerns are shared by Christopher Garner, from Clay Cross, who values the interactive exhibitions for his young children, one of whom is autistic and the other has ADHD. They come on a regular basis.

"It can be a difficult sometimes to get them to engage...they love coming back. We're constantly being pestered to bring them back," he said.

Kerry Andrews, who manages the centre, says the building can have up to 50 people at any one time.

"If there is a reduction or a loss in parking it would have an impact on our charity. Because we're rurally based many people have to travel here using their car and their own vehicles," she said.

Kerry fears that if numbers dwindle the charity's funding will be impacted.

"If we didn't exist there would be a burden on other services...it would upset so many lives," she said.

The Derbyshire Gypsy Travaller Liason Group told the BBC a solution that was proposed years ago fell apart when the county council withdrew permission to use the land, which they owned:

"[We] have undertaken three planning applications ourselves to try and help," they said.

"Sixteen to seventeen years is a long wait for anything to be done."

The group also rejected claims that the proposed sites would heavily impact local firms and community groups.

Derbyshire Dales District Council has been at loggerheads with the county council over the issue, with the county council now opposing the use of all four of the newly identified sites.

The district council has sited county leaders as a "key reason the district council has been hamstrung in recent years" in providing sites to the families.

"We're not standing in the way, we've had a long and helpful dialogue [with the district council]," said the leader of Derbyshire County Council, Barry Lewis.

"We have had discussions in the past about finding long-term solutions but they've been ruled out.

"It is not our responsibility to find these sites for the district council, it is the district council's responsibility to enter into a sensible dialogue and to take on board local views."

The Labour MP for the Derbyshire Dales John Whitby said while he had concerns about restricting local tourism across the car park sites in particular, the district council "only have so much land they can give up".

"I'm very glad they're trying to move this on now after years of inertia," he said.

"Wherever they propose there's going to be opposition.

"The council needs to find [the families] a permanent home as soon as possible."

A spokesperson for Derbyshire Dales District Council said: "The agreement reached by council last month was that each of the proposed temporary traveller sites will be subject to a formal planning application and it wouldn't be appropriate for us to comment on or prejudge that statutory process in the meantime."

Follow BBC Derby on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.