Ashbourne Airfield development
D2N2 agreed in January 2020 to provide £1million from its Local Growth Fund to support the Ashbourne Airfield development project in the Derbyshire Dales.
The funding will support new infrastructure to unlock much needed land for employment and housing development. Once completed, the overall scheme will provide employment space within Ashbourne for new and expanding businesses, creating opportunities for businesses and jobs for local people.
The project is a partnership between Derbyshire Dales District Council, Derbyshire County Council and landowner FW Harrison, all of which have put in additional funding for the infrastructure improvements. The public/private partnership has worked for a number of years to deliver the scheme to this point.
D2N2 is the private sector-led partnership which promotes economic growth across Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. It has been allocated more than £250m in its Local Growth Fund from Government to part-fund infrastructure projects which directly help the area’s economy and create jobs.
The Ashbourne Airfield scheme, costing £10.27million in total, will see the construction of a new 50m-wide three-arm roundabout on the A52 – providing a crucial second access to the site - and a 720m long link road to the nearby Airfield Industrial Estate, named after the former second world-war era RAF airbase.
Ashbourne Airfield Industrial Estate is the largest employment location in the Derbyshire Dales and is the focus of the district’s manufacturing economy, occupied by over 70 businesses employing over 2000 people.
Once complete, the new roundabout and link road will address existing highway capacity problems as well as speeding up the construction of the proposed Ashbourne Business Park and adjacent housing development.