Anne Wright

Chairman, Ashbourne Town Team

2021 proved to be another challenging year..

As we wrote this statement last year, I don’t think we expected another three anda-half-month lockdown and all the associated difficulties that came with it.

However, Ashbourne bounced back and we welcomed a summer boosted by the “staycation” boom, as visitors enjoyed all that Ashbourne has to offer with our unique town centre experience of independent led shopping, hospitality and entertainment.

The Town Team held a public review meeting with local businesses in November. We reported on successes achieved in 2021, most notably with the launch of the Discover Ashbourne website and the new brand identity for our town.

Initiatives have included brochures promoting Ashbourne, branded bags, flags, and an active presence on social media.

Going forward further marketing initiatives and more development of the website will be a key focus for 2022.

We also completed a compelling Vision and Strategy for Ashbourne which is now being used as the basis of our campaign for regeneration of the town.

Our objective is to pull together a range of exciting individual projects into a coherent bid to attract Government funding to support the regeneration of Ashbourne.

Key initiatives include a major refurbishment project for the Market Place and significant improvements to managing our traffic problems and enhancements to the public realm to make the town a better and safer place for pedestrians.

These proposals are being worked on further and consultations are already underway with our local authorities.

We have already made good progress in raising the profile of the needs of Ashbourne, in 2022 we aim to galvanise support for the town across all of our local government stakeholders.

Looking forward to 2022, it looks like another fragile start but we remain optimistic and determined to achieve positive change for the town.