Last night was the second in the series of public meetings to keep local people up to date with progress on the Help for Heanor High Street Campaign.
The meeting wasn't as well attended (or publicised) as the first one, but there was still a sizeable group who turned up to St Lawrence Church to find out more about what's going on.
Oringially started by the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce, this second meeting was chaired by Simon Minto, the chair of the Heanor Traders Association, with the rest of the panel comprising of Kevin Parkinson - Amber Valley Borough and Derbyshire County Councils, Stephen Jackson - Amber Valley BC Regenration Manager, Julie Crouch - Ripley and Heanor News, Chris Flude - Heanor Development Trust (COG), and Liz Bowley - Amber Valley Borough Council.
Heanor Market
Probably the main news form the meeting was that the Heanor Traders Association tender to run Heanor Market has been accepted by the Council. This means that running of the market will transfer over to the group over the next month or so, and hopefully we will all start to see some real improvements and developments in the heart of our town.
The traders have some exciting plans for the market
It won't all happen overnight though, and some elements will take longer to deliver than others, but we can all get involved and do our bit by visiting the market and the town, and doing as much of our shopping there as possible.
Mary Portas Bid
The other big news was the submission of a bid from our new Town Team to make Heanor one of the Mary Portas Pilot Towns, and secure a grant of £100,000 to spend on the town. The team have worked really hard to get the application ready, and it even includes a short video produced to highlight the plight of the town and the wishes of the traders and residents. You can see the video here.
Many other towns up and down the country are applying for this pot of miney though, so competition will be fierce. The results are due to be announced at the end of May, so we'll let you know as soon as we hear anything!
Parking
Probably the most contencious issue for the night though, was that of the cost of parking in the town. Many local people feel that having to pay to park even if you're just popping for milk or fruit and veg is a big problem and is driving many shoppers down to the supermarkets and their free car parks.
The Councillors suggested that to have free parking would mean that we would all have to pay more on our Council Tax.
We'd be interested to know though, exactly how much the 40p charge to park contributes to our Council's coffers, and how much exactly they would lose by just allowing the first 15 or 30 mins free.
Many people seem to think the benefits generally to the town would far outweigh the lost revenue and we would tend to agree!
What do you think? Tell us below and we'll feed your comments in to the next meetings...
The next meeting should take place in just a couple of months, keep checking our events pages for details when they are announced.
