Chesterfield's Waterside development has been well worth the wait

It’ll never happen, I remember people saying – but now it finally is.
Chesterfield Waterside illustrative drawings (Image: Bond Bryan Architects).Chesterfield Waterside illustrative drawings (Image: Bond Bryan Architects).
Chesterfield Waterside illustrative drawings (Image: Bond Bryan Architects).

The redevelopment of the for mer Arnold Laver site and Trebor sweet factory in Chesterfield was always going to take time.

After all, it is the most ambitious, multi-faceted project that the town has ever seen, involving housing, office space, shops, bars, a hotel, multi-storey car park, high-end apartments – and canal basin marina.

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The £340m regeneration scheme will create 1,200 news homes on the 16 acre site and is one of the biggest projects of its kind in the UK.

So it’s not entirely surprising that it’s taken a while to take shape – especially when you consider we’ve had a financial crisis, global recession and now a worldwide pandemic since the blueprints were first drawn up.

And in that intervening time there have been plenty of cynics claiming that the whole project would never get off the ground and would simply remain waste land.

But they’ll have to eat their words now, after news that building work on the seven-storey office building part of the scheme is due to start in October.

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And this comes just after Avant homes announced the opening of their show home for the first 174 properties they’re building as part of Waterside.

It’s a major feather in the town’s cap that, not only is the project taking concrete shape and coming out of the ground, but that business tenants to take on the office accommodation have already been found.

Developers say the new high-quality offices may even entice city-based firms in Manchester and London to relocate to Chesterfield, or at least set up regional branches of their business here.

I’m sure to those who thought we’d never see a brick laid, the idea seems equally preposterous – but why not?

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Born and bred here, of course I’m biased, but I genuinely think north Derbyshire is the perfect place to live and work.

We have the beauty and tranquility of the Peak District just minutes down the road, as well as bustling city life in Sheffield almost as close.

Why wouldn’t you want to move your business to a place like this?