The Avenue Country Park Contact
The site contact for our The Avenue Country Park space is the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust team
This space is managed in partnership with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust
Region: Midlands
Once one of Europe's most polluted sites, The Avenue, is now an award winning parkland and wildlife reserve. The 90 hectare former Coking Works in North East Derbyshire has benefitted from significant investment by Homes England and its predecessors over the last 20 years, with the site transferring to the Land Trust's management in 2019.
Situated just outside the busy town of Chesterfield, The Avenue is a public open space with a fascinating history and a bright future. The Land Trust believes that the site has substantial potential to deliver significant economic, environmental and health benefits for local communities and become a much valued green asset for the Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire area.
The site contact for our The Avenue Country Park space is the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust team
This space is managed in partnership with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust
The Avenue is open to be enjoyed by the public 24 hours a day.
There is plenty of car parking space available for people who want to bring their families or dogs to the site.
There are no public toilets on site.
(click here to find the nearest public toilets)
The Avenue Country Park is completely free to enjoy.
The site is suitable for wheelchair users.
There are well maintained footpaths throughout the site.
Well behaved dogs are welcome on site.
The Avenue Country Park is a fantastic place to enjoy with your friends and family. Popular with walkers and cyclists The Avenue is a brilliant place to keep physically fit and enjoy the mental health benefits that spending time in well managed green space can bring.
The Land Trust's maintenance regime will ensure that the environment at the Country Park is preserved and enhanced. This in turn will enable the natural environment to flourish, supporting and and attracting more wildlife as well as protecting the birds that already call the site home.
Another of the Land Trust's sites, Avenue Washlands Nature Reserve, neighbours the new Country Park. The reserve is home to a diverse range of thriving wildlife. Species such as Water voles, which are nationally declining, have found a home here. There are also Little egrets, Great crested newts, Grass snakes, Kingfishers, Barn owls, Lapwings, Skylarks and Little ringed plovers. People can enjoy great views of these species and many more from the special viewing platforms all around the site.
Site size: 90 hectares
The Avenue Coking Works was originally a colliery, open cast and underground mine, as well as iron ore and lime workings. At its peak Avenue employed 800 people and produced 1,400 tonnes of smokeless fuel a day.
The coking works was also the focal point of the community for three and a half decades with fathers and sons working together side by side and then socialising together afterwards. Community clubs and social networks flourished.
The Land Trust’s vision for the future of The Avenue has echoes of this history, with an opportunity for the site to become the beating heart of the community once more.
The Land Trust will build on our successful work at neighbouring Avenue Washlands to develop The Avenue as a community resource. We will deliver a sense of place for the increasingly valuable development platforms, unlocking health and well-being benefits for the whole community, in a safe and well managed green space.
The resulting green space will showcase how a highly contaminated green space can be transformed for the long term to provide significant social value including health and well-being benefits for the whole community, protecting and increasing property values and booming environmental habitats.
It will be used to bring together new and existing communities and will be a place that future generations can be proud of.
To contact the Land Trust about this site or how we could help manage your space please email our Estates Manager Simon Pedley or call 07789 651487.
To enquire about holding an event on a Land Trust site, please click here.
We are always on the look out for enthusiastic, committed people who want to make a real and lasting difference in their local community.
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