Plans to transform train station gateway to Chesterfield town centre reach milestone

Council leaders say the relocation of a town business is a key milestone in their bid to transform the area around Chesterfield railway station.
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The HS2 Station Master Plan will feature a new boulevard for pedestrians and cyclists between the station and Corporation Street, and a new station link road between Brimington Road and Hollis Lane.

It is also hoped the wider regeneration of the neighbourhood – which Chesterfield Borough Council says is not dependent on the high speed rail link reaching the town – can create up to 850 jobs.

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The relocation of Jewson, from Spa Lane to Sheffield Road, will allow the construction of a new highway from Hollis Lane, extending Spa Lane up to the railway station car park.

How the new gateway between the train station and Chesterfield town centre is projected to look. Image: Whittam Cox Architects.How the new gateway between the train station and Chesterfield town centre is projected to look. Image: Whittam Cox Architects.
How the new gateway between the train station and Chesterfield town centre is projected to look. Image: Whittam Cox Architects.

Council bosses say the link road will form the new gateway from the south.

Councillor Tricia Gilby, leader of Chesterfield Borough Council, said: “The completion of Jewson’s new Sheffield Road branch signals another positive step forward for our plans to transform the area around Chesterfield railway station.”

Members of Chesterfield Borough Council’s cabinet approved the HS2 Station Master Plan during a meeting in February 2021.

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During a consultation event, a number of organisations welcomed the plan, with Chesterfield and District Civic Society describing it as a ‘vast improvement’.

The society said in a statement: "Even if the line is not built, Chesterfield badly needs a new approach to the station, as it did in 1870, and we believe that this scheme is the best that could be achieved, given the constraints presented by the railway itself and the Inner Relief Road, which already compete with the river for space in the valley floor at this point.

"We hope that it goes ahead as soon as possible."

However, campaigners from the Transition Chesterfield group said the plan was a 'huge missed opportunity' which risks 'becoming a white elephant within a few years' time'.

Chesterfield-based Whittam Cox Architects produced a ‘fly-through video’ of how the site could look, featuring office blocks, public open space, a new bridge and water feature and incorporating the Grade II-listed North Midland House.

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Government ministers confirmed last November that the high speed rail link from London and Birmingham will now stop at an East Midlands hub near Nottingham and not continue to Chesterfield, Sheffield and Leeds.