The Peak District National Park Authority is the Local Planning Authority for this special landscape and its work includes the determination of planning applications (including a large minerals caseload), enforcement and monitoring of unauthorised development, and creating distinctive planning policies that respond to the needs of local communities and business while balancing the long term protection of some of our most cherished landscapes, wildlife and heritage sites. Inputting into all of this is a team of dedicated specialists (ecologists, historic environment officers and landscape architects), legal officers and support teams who provide the advice and structure to the Authority to make it all work and well as possible.
Newburgh Engineering, Bradwell
One of the real challenges is setting a long term planning strategy that enables careful change. Clearly the scope for growth and change is more limited than in other areas but the Peak District has quite a different character to other National Parks. Its has by far the most mineral activity across the National Park family with over 30 quarries still active, it has a very large number of settlements (around a hundred of various sizes) and many traditional family farms. It also has a tradition of industry (including manufacturing and heavy industry), in common with the wider Derbyshire and South Yorkshire conurbations.
Riverside Business Park, Bakewell
Business and employment data is difficult to accurately ‘cut’ to the National Park boundary but the Peak District Economic Development Assessment (2025) suggests there are around 8,000 businesses operating in the National Park. There are 1,368 farm holdings across 107,487 ha of land and the total agricultural labour force is 3,032 including both full, part-time and casual workers. There is a slightly higher proportion of micro-businesses than elsewhere and whilst mining now only accounts for only 360 jobs in the Peak District (2%) the proportion far outweighs the regional (0.2) and national (0.1) picture. Although overall figures are inflated due to the data issue noted it is clear that tourism remains a vital industry to the National Park with around 25% of all employees, significantly higher than regional (8%) and national (9%) averages.
But the National Park also has a high degree of constraint with over 100 conservation areas, 3000 listed buildings, and large tracts of internationally and locally important wildlife sites which underpin the very reason for designating the area as a National Park. This has obviously created a large tourism and service sector which provides a wide range of jobs and economic benefit to the area, but we have long realised the need to retain higher value and higher skilled opportunities for our local workforce.
As such recent planning policy documents have sought to also protect the best of our employment sites. We call these safeguarded employment sites and there is a list of such in our plan across the National Park but with a notable core running from Bakewell up to the Hope Valley. These seek to protect business focussed use classes in our towns and villages and sometimes on farm sites (farm diversification) and others in sustainable locations alongside the Hope Valley railway line.
The current list is set out in policy DME 3 of the Local Plan and includes larger Business Parks such as those in Bakewell and Tideswell, converted heritage sites like Hall Farm in Hathersage and bespoke like those sites at Aston Lane, Bradwell in the Hope Valley, and farm-based sites like Cartledge House in Great Hucklow.
We do get some pressure to change these uses and we look at this against current evidence and the business case of the applicant as trends and markets do change over time. But the basic need to protect land use for the benefit of communities and business remains a strong thread and one that many people value in bringing good quality jobs close to where people live.
We are currently reviewing these policies and latest evidence suggests there remains a strong demand for B1 (office), B2 (industrial) and B8 (warehouse) uses across the area. Indeed we intend to identify more of these sites and add them to the list.
Some new ones include our own National Park office site in Bakewell which has become a very healthy business hub with several other small businesses sharing the Aldern House base with its wifi connection, comfortable meeting rooms and plentiful car parking.
Other sites in the Hope Valley have also been identified as accessible locations worthy of protection.
The next plan is due for final consultation in the late summer then we hope to submit it to the Planning Inspectorate by the end of the year and adopt in 2027.
Stay tuned through our website here:
