Page 24 - The Land Trust Annual Review 2019

Our new sites Land Trust Annual Review 2019

St Michael’s Hurst The Avenue Country Park

At St Michael’s Hurst we will manage the green Once one of Europe’s most polluted sites,
infrastructure within the growing property The Avenue Country Park, is now an award
development as well as having responsibility for winning parkland and wildlife reserve. The 90
Bat Willow Hurst Country Park which is situated hectare former Coking Works in North East
adjacent to the site. Derbyshire has benefitted from significant
investment by Homes England and its
predecessors over the last 20 years, with the
freehold of the site transferring to the Land Trust’s
management in 2019.

Situated just outside the busy town of Chesterfield,
the country park is a public open space with a
fascinating history and a bright future.
Originally a colliery, open cast and underground
mine, at its peak Avenue Coking Works employed
800 people and produced 1,400 tonnes of smokeless The resulting green space will showcase how a
fuel a day and was the focal point of the community highly contaminated green space can be transformed
for three and a half decades. The Land Trust’s vision for the long term to provide significant social value
for the future has echoes of this history, with an including health and well-being benefits for the whole
opportunity for the site to become the beating heart community, protecting and increasing property values
of the community once more. and booming environmental habitats.

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