Letter: This whole affair needs calling out, and the brakes firmly applied to this runaway development application
The publicity leading up to application for the £100m redevelopment of Buxton town centre might previously have sounded a little too good to be true, but the bare facts of the project are now surfacing and can be summarised, thus:
£6.6m of Future High Streets funding was secured from the government, to which, High Peak Borough Council added £4.2m “of its own money" to buy The Springs shopping centre in December 2022.
In May 2026, the application was submitted to the same High Peak Borough Council, the new landowners, for a mixed-use development; including 332 new apartments (for approx. 880 residents).
In the words of the spokesperson for developers Capital&Centric; "New development is focused on existing surface car parks, and later, on buildings that make little contribution to Buxton's architectural heritage".
In other words, it's a ruse to put the sprawling town-centre car park into the hands of developers, to be built over with apartment blocks between Spring Gardens and the railway station. Victorian and historic buildings, which don’t benefit from listed status, will then be cleared to shoe-horn in more micro-apartments (without parking) and to create a concrete facaded pedestrianised zone, rendering the historic centre of the Buxton spa town more a reflection of Stockport's 1970s Merseway precinct (see sketches).
No wonder HPBC can’t wait to sell off the Town Hall, a magnificent monument to Buxton’s architectural heyday, of which, our elected councils are merely the temporary custodians. Ie. it’s not really theirs to give away. Justification for which is cited as being due to proposed new working practices, from a location within the Springs’ new development, or, perhaps more likely given the paucity of parking space, working from home, before the authority itself is scrapped in 2028.
This whole affair needs calling out, and the brakes firmly applied to this runaway development application, so the public is consulted and enlightened to what’s really going on before spades hit the ground (of the car parks) and it’s too late to stop.
If it wasn't for Independent councillor, Madeline Hall, drawing attention to the details of the development, and starting a petition to curb its excesses, the HPBC in collusion with the developer, might have succeeded in pulling the wool over all our eyes by means of their creative investment of our own council taxes, and hitherto 'too good to be true' assurances.
Sign the petition and share with friends, neighbours, and other High Peak residents: www.change.org/p/oppose-overdevelopment-of-the-springs-in-buxton
Lindsay Rogers
High Peak