New Shrovetide project backed
VOLUNTEER GROUP LOOKS TO BRIGHTEN TOWN SPACE
COUNCILLORS have given their blessing to a volunteer-run project that promises to smarten up a forgotten part of a town centre.
Community Interest Company AshCom has submitted plans to create a new public space at Shrovetide Walk, in Ashbourne, with the town’s historic game of Shrovetide as a centrepiece.
The patch of land between the former Waitrose building and Ashbourne’s library has become busier in recent months after AshCom moved the Thursday market into the area – and now it wants to smarten it up with a new seating area.
As part of the project, which will cost more than £100,000 and will be funded partly by Derbyshire Dales District Council, architects have been brought in to design Shrovetide sculptures and removable seating.
And town councillors were given their first chance to discuss the plans during a meeting on Monday, ahead of a decision by Derbyshire Dales District Council in the coming weeks.
Councillors initially shared some of the concerns expressed by members of the public, which centre around how the area will cope during the game of Shrovetide itself, as it starts just metres away on a plinth in Shaw Croft car park and the hug often races towards Compton, through Shrovetide Walk.
New town councillor Nick Fearn, who is also on the Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide Football Committee, said: “I think whatever you put in there should be removable.
“If something’s going to be made in a lovely stone that can be cleaned afterwards, not a problem, but if you’re going to do flower beds etc, or big tubs, I just suggest that they should be removable for when the game starts.”
Councillor Sean Clayton
responded, as a member of the Ashbourne Communities CIC and a key player in the design of the garden area, to allay some of the town councillors’ fears. He said: “The flowers and plants that we’re using in the raised area and the lower area will be grasses and hebes and that sort of thing.
“They’ll be dormant at that time of the year. Of they’ll be cut down to the ground prior to the game. So that shouldn’t be a problem at all in that area.
“The figurines, what we’re looking at is that they will be robust enough and narrow enough and central enough so that the hug can either go down the river, or down the outside of that grassed area. There are not usually so many people stood in that area. Everything else will either be Tarmac, resinbased or pea gravel which is resin-bound. So it wouldn’t cause any issue. And in fact it would actually give more surface area on that grassed area to stand in.”
Repeating their comments about how welcome the project was, and how good the designs looked, councillors unanimously voted to submit no objection to the plans.