Setting the record straight
It is not often that political parties are required to set the record straight on things that happened over 25 years ago! However Ashbourne Conservatives continue to comment on the Liberal Democrats action in late 1997 without providing a suitable context (and, coincidentally, remind us of the year when the Conservatives lost more than half their seats at the General Election).
Fortunately the Ashbourne News Telegraph archive at Ashbourne Library can help cast some light on what happened at the end of the last century.
According to the ANT of Jan 22nd 1998, Ashbourne Town Council had received a letter from the Chair of the County Highways Authority "indicating no chance of a bypass in the next 10 years".
On Jan 29th 1998 the ANT reported that the 'western relief road' had been deleted from the Local Plan by the Lib Dem controlled District Council - and only two objections to this deletion had been received during the 6 week consultation. It was emphasised at the time that "this was not a complete abandonment of the scheme but a reflection that 'planning blight' should not be allowed to affect property for something that would not happen for 10+ years. Rather it would be better to delete it and return to it when the Local Plan was reviewed in the future". There was no comment in the ANT in the subsequent weeks on this omission.
It is worth mentioning that although the Ashbourne bypass is referred to in the Conservative led 2017 Local Plan, it is in just 3 sentences in the 156 pages of that plan.
To clarify the present position of Derbyshire Dales Liberal Democrats;
We are in favour of a 'western' bypass (relief road) and all Lib Dem councillors voted for this at the relevant District Council meeting. However we are strongly advocating that additional measures be adopted in the short term to address the immediate problems of air pollution and congestion that currently blight our town.
Even when funding is in place the 'relief road' will not arrive overnight or address all of Ashbourne's problems.
Derbyshire Dales Liberal Democrats