Please support us in protecting a small piece of Bakewell that has become a vital part of our family and our community.

We are asking the people of Bakewell and the surrounding area to stand with us and ask Derbyshire Dales District Council to reconsider its decision to transfer the council-owned land off Yeld Close for housing development.

For many years, our family has rented this small piece of land from the council. It is right beside our home and is used for our ponies. It has become far more than simply a field to us.

It is our family's little safe haven.

It is where our children can spend time with our ponies, where we can enjoy the countryside on our doorstep and somewhere that has played an enormously important part in our family's wellbeing.

Taking this land away would have a genuine and profound impact on our family.

But this isn't just about us.

We believe it is about whether local people should have a meaningful voice in what happens to their own community.

Derbyshire Dales District Council has agreed to seek to transfer this land for nil consideration to Nottingham Community Housing Association, with the intention of enabling approximately eight affordable homes to be built. �

Derbyshire Dales District Council

We understand that affordable housing is needed and we are not against providing homes for people who genuinely need them.

But we believe there should be a serious conversation about whether this particular piece of land is the right place to provide those homes — particularly when it is already being used by a local family who have rented and cared for it for many years.

Bakewell is already under considerable pressure from housing development, traffic, parking, access and local infrastructure.

The adjoining Yeld Close development has already received permission for 42 homes, meaning the wider area is already facing significant additional development. �

Peak District

Bakewell Town Council has previously raised concerns relating to traffic generation, vehicle access and road safety in the wider Yeld Close/Yeld Road/Monyash Road/King Street/Shutts Lane area, describing congestion around school times. �

Bakewell Town Council

We therefore believe it is entirely reasonable to ask:

Do Bakewell residents genuinely want this additional development?

Is this the right piece of land?

Has the impact on the existing community been properly considered?

And perhaps most importantly:

Should decisions affecting our community be made without giving the people who live here a proper opportunity to have their say?

We were particularly upset by the way we found out about the proposed disposal.

As the long-standing tenants of this land, we believe we should have been properly informed before the matter was publicised and before decisions were made.

Instead, we discovered the proposal through reports in the Buxton Advertiser and Derbyshire Times.

We then had to contact the council ourselves to find out what was happening.

We subsequently found ourselves facing a decision that could fundamentally change our family's lives, while feeling that we had not been given a proper opportunity to explain what the land means to us or to make our case.

We attended the meeting because we desperately wanted to be heard.

Being unable to speak and having to sit and watch a decision about something that is such an important part of our lives was devastating.

We believe local people deserve better than that.

We believe residents should have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their community.

We believe long-standing tenants should be treated fairly.

And we believe that once a piece of community land is lost to development, it cannot simply be brought back.

This petition is therefore asking Derbyshire Dales District Council to:

1. Reconsider the decision to dispose of the Yeld Close land.

2. Keep the land in council ownership rather than transferring it away for development.

3. Allow the existing long-standing tenancy to continue.

4. Properly consider the impact that losing this land would have on our family and the wider community.

5. Give local residents a meaningful opportunity to have their views heard before any irreversible action is taken.

We are not asking for special treatment.

We are asking for fairness, transparency and a voice.

This little piece of land might look insignificant on a map.

But to our family it is our ponies, our children's childhood, our wellbeing, our connection to the countryside and our safe place.

And once it is built on, it will be gone forever.

Please stand with us.

Please sign this petition.

Please share it with your friends, family and neighbours.

Please help us show Derbyshire Dales District Council that Bakewell residents care about what happens to their town and believe they should have a genuine voice in decisions affecting their community.

Let's save our little piece of Bakewell.

Let's keep Yeld Close green.

Let's make sure local people are heard.