“I agree- in addition to safety issues : Please can they do something about parking as well as all this regeneration and building? Then perhaps people will stop parking in restricted areas and double yellow lines.”

“I find Normanton to be a district of two times.
Daytime - busy, colourful, exciting, diverse, friendly, a hive of legitimate industry.
Night time - dark , scary, threatening, a den of drugs and vice and crooks.
Some of the houses are the best in Derby yet we use some of them to dump the undesireables in. The low-lives that no-one else wants living next door to them.
I pity the decent people in this area but all we seem to hear, is that more and more money is being ploughed into improving it.
There are areas of Derby that never seem to get anything and they pay into the system too.”

“Tom, you make an excellent point about local businesses and cultures. We've got more ethnicities living in the area than i can make and their are businesses to cater to all their needs. I think if anything people should be helped with starting up more businesses and expanding existing ones.

The cultural diversity of the place is massive as is the potential, you have Asians, arabs, africans, afro-carribeans, eastern europeans, as well as English and Irish communities in the area.”

“Anyone who thinks the size of properties in Normanton is small, obviously hasn't visited many. You couldn't get a house the size of ours in the subarbs unless you paid twice what ours cost. RoseHill street has properties which would fetch half a million of the area was not a bit ghetto like.

All in all though, the problems are over stated. Yes it's not a leafy subarb, but at the same time, we don't have constant gang wars and stabbings etc, having said that crime does occur more often than it does in say Mickleover or other areas like that.

The investment is a good thing, I like the idea of a health centre, as long as they don't close the local surgerys and make all our GP's move to one place.

The ibrary idea is a bit daft. We've got a library on PearTree road and the level of books you have in it is a joke. Perhaps it might be worth stocking the libaray we have with real books like the City Centre Library has, rather than building a brand new one.

The only major issue we have is parking, and the government can't help with that, they only milk us residents by forcing us to pay to park in front of our homes.

The fact of the matter is the area is well populated, it has a lot of working people in it and people need cars to get to work. Public transport is more expensive and takes longer.”

“Mr Derby,

Have you ever been to the BRONX, I doubt you have even left the County or Country, if you have nothing constructive to write, get off the page.

If you have no Interest in Normanton / Inner City then this is of know Interest to you.

Normanton is a very historical part of Derby from the first park in the country all the way up to the barracks and village street, yet I suppose you wouldn¿t know that !!.

I think it¿s great so long as planned and thought about, the area does need a lift it is a shame the Normanton hotel can¿t be renovated, but it has been left to long and the amount a damage a few pigeons can do over the years is amazing.

Every city has run down inner city suburbs and every few decades you have to improve & modernise.”

“I get fed up of people calling down this area. Ok, it is run down and crime is rife, but it's a cultural paradise for me. Plus it's much more cheaper shopping in Normanton than the greedy supermarkets.

It would be disappointing to see the Normanton Hotel and the old mill be replaced by modern plastic and concrete. I'd rather see both building refurbished.”

“I think this sounds very positive, and perhaps well overdue?
Regarding the "policing" issues though- still a worry, if threatened with cutbacks.
I think people living in inner city areas deserve decent facilities
and a safer enviroment.”

“would be alot cheaper to just fense off the whole of normanton as a "NO GO AREA".the "BRONX n GHETTO'S" spring to mind.”

“Noble as such a project is, all it does is perpetuate life for many in a decaying and suffocatingly crowded inner city area. The entrapment that many who live in this area must feel will be continued unless modern roomier housing stock is made available here and elsewhere. The undoubted larger family cultures should have the choice, of say, realistic social housing stock, in in more traditional and airier suburbs of Derby. The traffic flows and increased on-street parking, not to mention a sense of marginalisation must have the residents of Normanton desperately seeking a way out, into more mixed social environments. This would give children an opportunity to exerience a culture and landscapes closer to the green countryside,other than that of streets and claustrophobic social surroundings. Those who know Derby's history will recall the clearances of the West End, the creation of Mackworth and the subsequent modern regeneration of the West End in the 1950's.
Perhaps with our current mix of social groups we should avoid maintaining ghettos of minority and certainly marginalised groups, to ensure a better integrated society?”