We have decided to prepare a Growth Plan for Shirebrook. The Growth Plan will be a dedicated plan for Shirebrook, setting out plans for how Shirebrook could grow and prosper over the next five years and beyond. It will cover issues such as living and working in Shirebrook, and will particularly focus on the town centre and the Market Place and environmental issues.

As we have an up-to-date Local Plan which doesn’t need to be reviewed for several years, the Shirebrook Growth Plan will be a non-statutory planning document that will sit on top of the Local Plan for Bolsover District. It is intended that the Growth Plan will be adopted as a material consideration in our planning processes.

What happened previously?

We started the preparation of the Shirebrook Growth Plan in February 2022 and ran an initial consultation exercise during March 2022. Feedback on what the people of Shirebrook said during this consultation exercise is set out in the Shirebrook Growth Plan newsletter issue 1

Following this exercise, we ran a second stage of consultation during September 2022 which focussed on masterplanning to understand what land uses the people of Shirebrook thought any growth in the town should include.

The feedback from this exercise is still being considered and will inform the next stage of the preparation of the Shirebrook Growth Plan. However, to ensure that those people that responded to the consultation and the wider local community were informed of what had been said during the consultation exercise we held a virtual reality showcase event held in Shirebrook on 11 November 2022. 

This virtual reality showcase event saw a Virtual Reality Balloon Ride which explored Shirebrook from the air in order to help participants to appreciate the planned Shirebrook Market Place: REimagined public realm improvement proposals and what potential additional growth could look like in Shirebrook from a new and exciting perspective.

Whilst not in virtual reality, you can still view the Shirebrook Virtual Reality Balloon Ride (opens in a new window) and let us know whether the use of virtual reality was helpful in understanding what additional growth could look like in Shirebrook.

Timetable going forward

The timetable for the next stages of the preparation of the Shirebrook Growth Plan is as follows:

• January / February 2024 – Consultation on draft Shirebrook Growth Plan
• April 2024 – Adoption of Shirebrook Growth Plan