Swadlincote: Urban park to be named after former colliery

The park will be built on part of the former 200-acre Cadley Hill Colliery

An "urban park" on the site of a former colliery will be named after the coal mine to ensure its heritage is not forgotten.

Councillors voted to name the space - in Swadlincote, Derbyshire - Cadley Park at a meeting on Thursday.

It is expected work on the £1.1m project will start within a month and be open to the public by October.

It will include a 0.7-mile (1.14 km) cycle route, a pump track and an area for new cyclists to learn how to ride.

The park will be built on part of the former 200-acre Cadley Hill Colliery, where mining stopped in 1997.

'Overwhelmingly good idea'

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said there were suggestions it should be named after Queen Elizabeth II or the Jubilee but these were rejected.

Councillor Neil Tilley, from South Derbyshire District Council, had relatives work down Cadley pit and said losing the name would be a "travesty".

A grant of £149,300 from Sport England is helping to fund the park off William Nadin Way.

Councillor Trevor Southerd, deputy leader of the council, said: "It is an exciting project, quite frankly, and it has been approved by the planning committee and we felt it was overwhelmingly a good idea."

The park is part of a larger plan to develop the area with hundreds of new homes, two golf courses, a pub, country park and driving range.