More than 450 businesses and households affected by the November 2019 and February 2020 floods are able to get help to pay for flood mitigation measures.

Derbyshire County Council are set to administer a scheme that gives eligible properties a £5,000 grant to put in measures to help stop properties being flooded in the future. These could be flood doors, sealing brick work and external walls, replacing airbricks with flood airbricks, flood barriers and moving electrical sockets up the wall.

£500 of every grant will need to be spent on a specialist survey, which will ensure that the right mitigation measures are recommended and installed.

Around 300 businesses and households were affected by the floods in November 2019, which were in South Derbyshire, Derbyshire Dales, Chesterfield and Amber Valley. The February 2020 floods hit 160 properties in Derbyshire Dales, Erewash and South Derbyshire.

Derbyshire County Council will write to all those eligible for the grant, and claims for those who flooded in November 2019 will need to be submitted by the end of October, with work carried out by February 2021.

The deadlines for applications for those affected by the February 2020 floods and not yet known.

Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Infrastructure, Councillor Simon Spencer, said:”This money will help businesses and householders put in some simple but effective flood mitigation measures that will help should the floods take place again.”

“The council will administer the scheme, process all applications and sort out a specialist survey, which will make sure that the right measures are recommended for each particular property. Surveyors will also check that the work gets completed to a good standard.”

“We saw a high number of properties flooded in many parts of the county, both in November 2019 and February this year, and I am sure that this money will help should we face similar circumstances again.”

Derbyshire County Council will use the services of specialist surveyors who are already used by the Environment Agency.

Chesterfield-based Avant Homes Central has announced the successful restart of construction work and sales activity on all 10 of its residential development sites.

The housebuilder is operating each development in strict accordance with UK government public health guidelines regarding Covd-19 to ensure the safety of its people, residents, contractors, suppliers and site visitors.

Since restarting its build programme and opening its marketing suites, the company has experienced a surge in prospective buyer enquiries.

Commenting on the successful restart, Avant Homes Central managing director, Stuart Rowlands said: “As soon as we closed down our build and sales operations, we began planning a safe way to return to work once it was encouraged by the UK government.”

“This enabled us to restart our build programme at pace, closely followed by our sales operation. We experienced an immediate and significant surge in demand from prospective buyers wanting to view our homes, which is still ongoing. This is testimony to both our product and the great work done by our people to respond to the situation created by Covid-19.”

“Our customer appointment system is working well to meet the high levels of demand and our sales teams are fully trained to provide safe showhome and site viewing experiences. We look forward to welcoming many more people to our developments as we continue to steadily increase activity across all our sites.”

The housebuilder’s current developments under construction stretch from Worksop to Nottingham, and when complete will have delivered a total of over 1200 new homes combined.

Its latest developments include Egstow Park in Clay Cross, Woodyard Park in Nottingham, Phase 2 of the highly successful Portlands Development in Creswell and Waterside Quarter, part of the £340 million regeneration project on the edge of Chesterfield town centre, adjacent to the River Rother and Chesterfield Canal.

Avant Homes’ Waterside Quarter offers buyers 11 house designs

Sales momentum is expected to increase even further over the coming months following the government announcement to raise the threshold for stamp duty in England and Wales to £500,000.

Commenting on the changes Stuart said: “The chancellor’s announcement is fantastic news for those looking for a new home. The impact of Covid-19 has created many challenges for both developers and homebuyers and not only does this mean buyers can make significant savings on purchasing a home, but it also acts as a catalyst to boost the housing market.

“We very much welcome the changes and anticipate that buyers will jump at the opportunity to take advantage of the rates holiday.”

Avant Homes Central is part of Avant Homes, one of the UK’s largest privately-owned housebuilders. Currently operating in Scotland, Yorkshire, north east England and the Midlands, Avant Homes has a turnover of £483 million and employs around 780 people. The company’s head office is at Junction 30 of the M1, near Sheffield.

For more information about Avant Homes visit www.avanthomes.co.uk

Avant Homes Central supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 180 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.

Stuart Rowlands, Managing Director Avant Homes Central

CEO of Chesterfield’s Robinson PLC, Dr Helene Roberts, represented the packaging industry at a virtual meeting of over 200 business leaders to kick-start plans to make Britain a global leader of environmentally sustainable economies.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, is the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference. The event was due to take place in Glasgow in November but has now been postponed, threatening to slow efforts to tackle climate change and declining biodiversity.

The aim of the virtual event was to ensure that building an environmentally sustainable economy is back at the top of the agenda. Business leaders met with COP26 President and Business Secretary Alok Sharma and Environment Secretary George Eustice to plan the UK’s journey to COP26, now scheduled to take place in November 2021. The event was organised by the Council for Sustainable Business (CSB), in partnership with Defra.

Businesses including Unilever, Standard Chartered, Direct Line and Sainsbury’s heard film director and climate change campaigner Richard Curtis lead discussions on how the UK business community is inspiring action to repair our planet. Senior representatives from more than 200 businesses, NGOs and Government took part in the meeting.

Dr Helene says: “It was a truly inspirational event and I was delighted and proud to have taken part in what we hope will be a game changing commitment globally. As a company we are continually striving to become the best we can be environmentally and it is exciting to see other industries playing their part in a series of dramatic commitments which will help drive rapid and transformational change”.

Delegates focused on the steps being taken to advance a sustainable, green future and the need to take extraordinary actions to cut carbon emissions and restore nature and wildlife over the next 10 years, driving a ‘decade of difference’ for climate change and nature.

Liv Garfield, CEO of Severn Trent and CEO of the Council for Sustainable Business commented: “Business leaders have faced unprecedented challenges these past months and planning a sustainable future has slipped out of focus for many. It is more important than ever that we stay committed to make Britain a world leader when it comes to sustainable business operations which protect the environment for our future generations.”

“Every business in the UK has a role to play in delivering this. That is why today we are challenging ourselves and others to kickstart this new approach and commit to rapid and real transformations, proving that Britain can rise to the green recovery challenge.”

George Eustice, Environment Secretary said: “While the world has rightly been focused on tackling the immediate threat of coronavirus, the great global challenges of climate change, and nature and biodiversity loss have not gone away.”

“That’s why, especially ahead of COP26 in Glasgow next year, the government has committed to delivering a green and resilient recovery; the show of support from business leaders prioritising reducing emissions and restoring nature will play a huge part in delivering this and ensuring that the UK continues to be a global leader in protecting our environment for future generations.”

The event represents a key moment in the business community’s commitment to working with Government to deliver a green and resilient economy, aligning government policy and industrial scale to deliver ambitious environmental solutions.

Robinson Packaging supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 180 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.

CrossCountry have reinstated a number of rail services to Chesterfield after outcry from local residents and a lobbying campaign led by the leader of Chesterfield Borough Council, Cllr Tricia Gilby.

“As soon as I was made aware of the threat to CrossCountry services being withdrawn from Chesterfield station I wrote a very strongly worded letter to the Regional Director and involved local MP’s. We followed this up with very constructive conversations with CrossCountry and their new Regional Leadership Team.”

“Chesterfield Borough Council and our partners across Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and East Midlands have been campaigning for the full re-instatement of the CrossCountry service since we heard it may be withdrawn.”

“In normal circumstances around 620,000 passengers a year use CrossCountry services at Chesterfield, and whilst we are trying to rebuild the local economy and minimise the negative impacts on residents of our Borough and surrounding area, the action being proposed to temporarily suspend of all CrossCountry stops at Chesterfield from 6 July was appalling.”

“These services are critical to key workers and the growing numbers of people that are beginning to travel as the lockdown eases. The provision of regular and reliable public transport will be an essential part of our Coronavirus recovery plans for the Borough and northern Derbyshire communities.”

“I look forward to working with CrossCountry as our HS2 led regeneration proposals for the train station take shape over forthcoming months.”

Click here to find out more about HS2 in Chesterfield