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MORE
OF OUR CHILDREN’S HERITAGE DISAPPEARS FROM ELVASTON
CASTLE
Here is evidence (Gallery) of more of our children’s
heritage disappearing from Elvaston Castle in Derbyshire
County Council’s indecent rush to attempt to get rid
of the place. The County Council argues differently
– that it only wishes to lease out the Castle and
150 acres of the Parkland for a hotel and golf courses
– as if this is some kind of mitigation for the
deliberate act of getting rid of all that the people love
and care about, including the Castle, whilst claiming to
be restoring the Gardens to the wonderful sight they were
when William Barron had redesigned them in the early to
mid nineteenth century.
This deceptive piece of hokum might succeed
if it weren’t for a few facts that the County
Council isn’t so open about. For instance, that £10
million of Heritage Lottery Funding would be used to
create lovely gardens for a hotel to sit in – many
of the people who go there now wouldn’t be able to
afford to sit in them – not at anything up to a
tenner or more to park the car!
Or the fact that in order to build a resort
hotel with tournament golf courses they want to build a
road straight down the South Drive, through the Golden
Gates, through the restored Gardens, to join up with the
present Lodge Drive, also a road on Bedford Drive, up to
Home Farm, and an access road around the back of the
Church; And that’s just the beginning.
Although the public don’t want this at
all, and have rejected it en masse, again and again, the
County Council, (with the quiet and nodding compliance of
the Derby City Council and most of its councillors),
continues to clear the place of all that people might
like to look at and learn about, at a country house of
the magnificence of Elvaston Castle. Thus, today, we
photographed this lovely gypsy caravan and the carriage
parked alongside it, waiting in the Fox Covert car park
to be collected and taken away this very Monday evening
(September 4th).
We don’t know where, or to whom, they’re
going – all that we know is that, they are being
disposed of. It could be said that such carriages could
present an attractive and fitting feature in the restored
Gardens – alas, this is not to be! However, from the
fresh paint it is quite obvious that restoration has been
carried out on these lovely old vehicles – at whose
expense, and for whose benefit, one might ask? And why
have they been hidden away, and not on view to the
public? Just whose money is paying for these things
anyway?
If the same amount of time (our money), and
something which the County Council doesn’t seem to
possess, namely imagination, were used, things could be
very different. We have much more to tell you about the
scale of deception being practiced to try and get this
lunatic scheme passed, which we cannot allow to happen,
and will continue to fight, come what may. In the
meantime, watch this space.
We have also included, in this item, a
photograph of the car park ticket office, which, for a
lot of the summer, has not been open, as today. The
County Council claims a shortage of staff, and yet one
staff member was seen parked up in the car park, in a
Council vehicle, talking on his mobile phone. The Council
claims that it doesn’t have the money to restore and
run Elvaston Castle – and yet, one of the main
sources of income, the car park takings, is being allowed
by them to dissolve into a zero figure. Is this
incompetence, mismanagement, or is it, as one member of
the public told us they thought it to be, planned
obsolescence?
On the very day that the Government has
announced that junk food will be banned from schools, in
order to improve the health of young people (and possibly
cure some anti-social behaviour), items which could
encourage young visitors to the green open spaces of
Elvaston Castle with which to improve both their physical
health and mental development are being removed from the
site by Derbyshire County Council.
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