D-day for a long-awaited decision on multi-million-pound plans to regenerate historic Derbyshire mill complex

Monday, February 16, is the day on which Amber Valley Borough Council will finally make a decision on plans to turn the former Belper Mills complex into apartments.

This comes more than seven years after FI Real Estate Management filed its plans with the borough council.

A planning meeting to decide the issue will be held from 7pm at the Strutts Community Centre in Derby Road, Belper, instead of the usual Ripley Town Hall venue.

This decision day follows two months after the Grade I-listed site’s owners found out – via the Local Democracy Reporting Service – that they were set to receive £4.5 million from the East Midlands Combined County Authority to kickstart the scheme.

When it was submitted, the application had been for 117 apartments but this has now increased to 130, while the initial plans had detailed 276 parking spaces (an increase of 117 there currently).

The plans detailed that shop space, restaurants, cafes, a museum, office space and leisure facilities would take up the remaining space in the former mill complex, which ended its industrial use in the 1990s after more than 200 years.

FIREM’s application detailed that the scheme would create 190 additional jobs on the site – 270 overall, up from 80.

Recent documents uploaded last month to the borough council detail support from the Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust and Derbyshire County Council’s highways department.

It also includes a report commissioned onbehalf of the applicant detailing that the proposed plan is still the “optimal viable use” of the historic complex.

Also added in December was a response from the Belper North Mill Trust supporting the redevelopment but requesting free rent, in perpetuity, for the proposed museum and visitor centre space.

Since the plans were submitted, the borough council has threatened to reject the scheme due to the lack of information, suggested it would compulsory purchase the property off the developer and serve various legally mandated repair notices.

Meanwhile, Derbyshire County Council’s now former leader, Barry Lewis, had said the Mills owner had “failed” to maintain them and shown “flagrant disregard” to their condition, calling their inaction “astonishing”.

In August 2024, Unesco said the very status of the World Heritage Site which the Belper Mills sits in the centre off – hailed as its “jewel in the crown” – could be at risk if action is not taken on the industrial property and inappropriate development halted in the surrounding area.

Tim Knowles, founder and managing director at FI Real Estate Management, said in December: “Belper Mills, part of the historic Derwent Valley Mills, is a unique, historic site that we are very proud to be investing in.

“We are in the process of making an application to East Midlands County Combined Authority’s Brownfield Housing Fund to bring forward 130 homes at the site, and we continue to work closely with Amber Valley Borough Council. It is anticipated that the next stage of the site’s future will go to planning committee in early 2026.”

The firm said in March 2024 that it had already spent £1 million on planning documents and assessments.

Cllr Chris Emmas-Williams (Labour and Co-operative), borough council leader, had said: “We have been looking for support to get this over the line and hopefully it will help get this project delivered.

“It will be a fantastic thing if it gets over the line because it has been going downhill for many years and is deteriorating badly which needs fixing as quickly as possible.

“We are all pulling all the stops out to get this decision through and this would be the final piece of the jigsaw and we have an early February target to make that decision.

“It is critical that we get one. We have a few things to iron out and we need to get it right.”

Cllr Ben Bellamy, Belper councillor and leader of the Derbyshire Community Party Group, had said: “We of course welcome anything that gets our Mills saved, even if it means rewarding the current owners, who have let the site run down for years.

“The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. The original application went into Amber Valley in 2018. It’s time for Amber Valley to decide the application with a yes or a no and hopefully get on with it.”