AREAS OF NEGLECT

Every day we all drive or walk past areas that might be labelled eyesores without any purpose. Effortlessly, they are overcome by weeds and attract rubbish. In summer holidays, they become playgrounds, the only times anyone wants anything to do with them. Rumours always abound that one day they will be transformed into something really good. But they never are. Steve Meynell, chief estates officer at Derby City Council, said that land is already earmarked for development. A good example of this is the land standing above the inner ring road at Bridge Gate. Once the site of a BMW garage, it has been bought to have £8m worth of apartments built upon it.

But concerns over air pollution levels led to planning permission being refused in May. Developer Birchover Properties has since re-applied for permission. There may be many smaller example across the city, but over the past few years, the situation in Derby has at least improved. In Mill Street, what was a former nightclub and its untidy car park is now being replaced with city centre homes. A similar smart development stands in Ashbourne Road, in a former grain merchant's. Looking further back, the very centre of Derby, Tenant Street, to be precise, was home to the mother of all wasted spaces, when a hotel development stalled in 1991.

For five years a water-filled hole was an unlikely centrepiece across the road from the Council House until it was transformed into the Sir Peter Hilton Gardens. And one day, although we have heard this one before, the usual suspects, such as Duckworth Square and the land off Friar Gate, might be brought into use. Their fate rests with Derby Cityscape, an urban regeneration company which hopes it can use its special Government-given powers to bring new projects onto the sites as part of its plans for the city centre within the inner ring road, in Friar Gate and around the Roundhouse, on Pride Park.