The Hope Valley is split between two Westminster parliamentary constituencies. This has always complicated our engagement with our MPs, particularly when they have been of different political stripes. But happily, after some time in the planning, we were able to meet recently with John Whitby of Derbyshire Dales, and Jon Pearce of High Peak, both together at the same time. We were also pleased to be joined by Andy Johnstone of Hope Valley Community Energy.
It was a useful and productive meeting, at which we discussed transport, energy (saving and generation), land use and, briefly, the cement industry. Clearly they each have their own particular interests, but it was useful to be able to give the same message to both as to what we think both they as individual MPs and the Government can do to address the climate crisis.
Both of them shared our desire to see better public transport as a gateway to sustainable travel, with the rail line as key to this. We pressed for an all-stations local train service every 30 minutes, with one of the long distance trains stopping at Hope. We then need buses to connect with trains, and each of the five stations to become a transport hub. We discussed with them the planned ‘Peak Partnership Summit’, between the three relevant Mayors (East Midlands, South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester), highlighting it as an opportunity to plan a Hope Valley integrated transport system, and asked them to follow this up with Transport Ministers and the Mayors.
They both agreed with us on the need for a sustained, longer term, funding stream to support the retrofit of our existing housing stock, and said that it is something that GB Energy will need to address. Getting into the weeds of policy, we then discussed the P441 Modification to the Balancing and Settlement Code. The P441 modification would be a modification to electricity trading arrangements which would put the concept of local energy markets on a more robust regulatory footing. It would also simplify the process of setting up a local energy market and enable local generators connected at a different voltage to the consumers to enter these arrangements, allowing more communities to benefit. P441 would also give regulatory certainty to licensed suppliers so they are more confident about investing to provide services to enable local energy. We encouraged them in the strongest terms to Ed Miliband, asking him to instruct Ofgem to adopt this.
We discussed the need for a sustained funding stream to support farmers and other land managers in their efforts to manage land in a more sustainable fashion. The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) funding has been paused as all the existing funds up to March 2026 have been committed, which has created a lot of upset and uncertainty in the Hope Valley as the uplands almost completely missed out. Most of the SFI funding appears to have gone to business minded lowland arable farms, who are likely to have comparatively more staff, time and money to work the applications up.
They were at pains to present the spending of all the currently allocated SFI moneys as a success, compared to the previous government which had not managed to get allocated funds out to farmers. But of course with regard to more funding, they referred to the forthcoming spending review, competing pressures on public funds, etc.
The discussion about Breedon was brief. We were running out of time. Both are very keen on carbon capture and storage, and the Peak Cluster proposal, as being the only way to make the cement industry sustainable (and preserving jobs).
In all, we felt it was a constructive meeting, being not only an occasion on which we could share with them our views on practical policy matters of relevance locally as well as globally, but also nurturing a constructive relationship. We have already had follow up communication with them.
Jeremy Wight
HVCA Chair, April 2025
Left to right: Roger Clarke, Andy Johnstone (HVCE), Jon Pearce MP, Davina Ripton, Jeremy Wight, John Whitby MP.
