I don't know where he gets his information from regarding rural Langley Mill.
Let's not get confused with Aldercar, Langley back o'th brook area, and bottom of Mansfield Road (Donkey Field and Three Corners play places).
Since the three canals ca
me to Langley Mill in the 1700s, Langley Mill ceased to be rural, it became industrialised!
A hundred years later, the railways came taking a lot of business away from the canals, albeit the canals were still taking coal from Beggarlee wharf at the latter end of the Second World War, which I saw myself.
The idyllic kids' play, which you try to paint, wasn't quite so, we were surrounded by water courses and railways.
Bailey Brook at the back of the church claimed the life of one young child in 1960 and the railway claimed a young woman in the 50s.
Just as nowadays there were kids no-go areas imposed on us by gang cultures, Langley Mill had the recreation ground, the meadows at the back of the mill (a very dangerous place for kids) the pottery tip, and the Co-op field (after 4.30pm) and of course the streets, which were play places as there was never a car in sight till the very late 1960s.
Your comment on "this development would have been an out of town slum clearance" – we're not a town and it will clear away some very dilapidated 19th century properties.
In general they are only fast food outlets, four long-term empty shops, one betting shop, the post office (re-sited on Asda), one tyre-fitting outfit (to be re-sited). In all it only affects approximately 12 to 14
properties, not businesses.
But don't forget, the development will bring 360 jobs to the village and locals will have the majority of those jobs.
As to your comment on us all staying at home and having our provisions brought to us by electric vehicles (making us proper couch potatoes) is this to save on carbon emissions?
Well Mr Packham, they're widening a road near you and when it's finished they reckon it will pump an extra 186,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Surely that, and getting more freight back on our railways would be a better axe to grind.
Asda at Langley Mill would be able to have theirs delivered by rail, the old track bed into their site is still visible on the old pottery lane.
Freight in by rail, out by electric vehicles – what a bonus.
Don't deny us a little redevelopment in our once-thriving village, it needs it and, like the phoenix, Langley Mill will once again rise out of the ashes.
Life long Langley Miller
Name and address supplied
