These three Chesterfield roundabouts could get flyovers or underpasses as part of major road plans

Last year the Government consulted on proposals to create a major road network (MRN) and Derbyshire County Council put forward roads which it felt were of significant regional and national importance.

The Derbyshire roads in the MRN are:

- The A6135 and A619 from the Sheffield boundary, through Eckington and Barlborough to the Nottinghamshire boundary west of Worksop

- The A61 from the Sheffield boundary to the A38 at Alfreton and from the A38 to the Derby City boundary at Little Eaton

- The A617 from Chesterfield, via M1 motorway junction 29 to the Nottinghamshire boundary at Pleasley

- The A38 east of M1 motorway junction 28

- The A610 from the A38 at Ripley to the Nottinghamshire boundary

- The A609 and A6096 through Ilkeston

- The A511 through South Derbyshire

- The A516 in the Etwall area

- The A52 from Derby to the Staffordshire boundary

- The A6 from Derby to the East Cheshire boundary at New Mills

- The A53 from Leek to Buxton

Work will now start on planning for possible improvements to one of the roads on the MRN, the A6, which could see flyovers or underpasses for three roundabouts - Whittington Moor, Tesco and Horns Bridge in Chesterfield.

Work will also start on planning for a new road to improve access to the former Staveley Works site. This road would go from the Sainsbury’s island in Chesterfield to the meet the Staveley Northern Loop (A6192) bypassing Staveley and Brimington. The Staveley works site is a large regeneration project which offers land for housing and light industry.

These two projects could be funded from the National Roads Fund, a national £3.5billion pot of money to be spent from 2020 to 2025.

Derbyshire County Council’s cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure, Councillor Simon Spencer, said: “I’m very disappointed that the Government did not agree with us that the A515 is of national importance.

“Much of the limestone used across the country for building roads comes from Derbyshire, and travels down the A515 through Ashbourne. And the road is used by the many thousands of people who come to visit our great county.

“Despite this set-back we are pressing on with work for an Ashbourne bypass. We’re going to spend £344,000 on a traffic modelling study. I am determined that we will have a bypass for the town.”

He added: “We will continue to lobby the Government to include the A515 and A444 on the Major Road Network in the future, but much more importantly we will carry on with our own plans for Ashbourne while starting to look at the options for the A61 and Chesterfield Staveley Regeneration Route.”