Mount Pleasant Update

In January last year the current owners of the Mount Pleasant chapel, Russell and Lyn, presented a proposal that invited New Mills Town Council to safeguard community access to the graveyard and Sunday School at Mount Pleasant. The proposal described how the council could offer current and most importantly future owners or residents of the chapel, access from Aldersgate in return for the residents agreeing to open the gates on Spring Bank to give access to the grounds for the community. Access from Aldersgate would be strictly limited to friends and family of any residents and could be either restricted to pedestrians or include a car. The only entrance for public access would be via the existing main gates and steps on Spring Bank. The proposal would also give the council the opportunity to raise some income via a rental fee. All of this could be written into a rental agreement.

The reasons behind this proposal are twofold. First and most importantly, to Lyn and Russell, is to safeguard the public access to the space that they feel belongs to the community. The aim of the project has always been to create a space that can be enjoyed by the community. Secondly of course it would provide them with off road parking and an alternative route for bins.

A separate suggestion proposed by Russell and Lyn, is to create a small gate to the side of the chapel into the Town Hall car park to provide flat public access to the graveyard for the first time ever. All proposals would be at the expense of the current owners, Russell and Lyn.

The council agreed to put the proposals to the community and a public consultation was planned.
Since the initial idea was put forward, other suggestions of how to use the space have been proposed by members of the public and NMTC. Limited details of these suggestions and Russell and Lyn’s ideas have been published in the town councils’ minutes on 9th December 2024, but unfortunately the public consultation has not happened which has caused a lot of upset to some members of the community and to Russell and Lyn.

As some people may already be aware, and for transparency, since planning permission for the Mount Pleasant restoration was granted by High Peak Borough Council, Lyn has been elected as a member of New Mills Town Council. However, because of the conflict of interest she has not been party to any of the discussions so cannot provide any further details about the alternative proposals.

Details of Russell and Lyn's initial ideas as submitted in January 2024 can be seen in full here –

Proposal

For details of the other suggestions that are mentioned in the NMTC minutes please contact NMTC.

If you would like to leave feedback about Lyn and Russell’s ideas or the other suggestions, you can do that here –

Feedback Form

All of the feedback will be given to NMTC.

Hello

 Quick video, showing some of the reasons we built it...