Here's what's in store for the Sheffield business world in 2020 - probably...

‘Project Chorus’ is set to launch with a research and development centre, creating some 358 jobs. It would be followed by a full manufacturing plant creating further roles.

The £80m project has been backed by £8m from the Sheffield City Region organisation.

SCR documents state the company is ‘initially seeking to establish a research and development facility to develop the next generation of antennae for satellite control systems. This will create circa 358 mostly high value jobs.

‘The second phase will establish a manufacturing facility in the city region, creating a wide range of additional jobs.’

The SCR has previously made multi-million pound grants to attract inward investors including £12m to McLaren, which set up a £50m factory in Rotherham, and £5m to Boeing to establish a £20m facility in Sheffield, its first in Europe.

Other plants that could be landing - or at least beginning - in South Yorkshire in 2020 include Boeing’s much talked about second site, although the aerospace giant has had a difficult year after two fatal crashes.

And McLaren’s engine maker Ricardo could start on a £10m battery plant, as announced by The Star in June. The firm was approved for a £1.98m grant from the Sheffield City Region for the project.

Staying on the Advanced Manufacturing Park, hopes remain high that a planned £20m Lightweighting Centre achieves full funding.

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The Sheffield University project has been partially funded by the Sheffield City Region. It is hoped further cash will come from a successful £20m bid to the Strength in Places Fund. It would join a raft of research buildings close to the AMRC Factory 2050 on Sheffield Business Park.

Attercliffe Waterside is another well advanced project that has slipped a bit, prompting some to rename it Attercliffe Water-slide.

The housing estate plan was announced a decade ago and formally launched at the beginning of 2019.

Led by landowner Sheffield City Council there was much interest in the scheme from developers in the early part of the year. But as summer rolled into autumn, and the announcement of the winning bid never came, excitement turned to frustration among those keen to see the area on the up.

Now, the authority says a decision will be announced in early 2020. The gossip is that Leeds developer Citu is in pole position.

Another project that’s gone quiet is First Rail’s plan for a large call centre in Sheffield. Revealed by The Star a year ago, it has failed to progress publicly, although there is talk the company is looking at the old Carillion call centre near Park Square roundabout.

SCR papers showed a £1.5m grant for a £19m project set to create 447 jobs in the name of First Customer Contact Ltd. But it is not known whether the money was paid out.2020 will probably see the start of construction on at least one of three office blocks that have been mooted for a while. 4 St Paul’s on Pinstone Street, building H2 in the Heart of the City II and Vidrio on the Digital Campus on Sheaf Street are all poised to make the leap off the drawing board as the city’s office space dwindles.

You wait decades and then two motorway service centre plans come along. 2020 could see a conclusion - either way - in longstanding plans to build a site at Smithy Wood at Junction 35 of the M1 near Chapeltown and a rival project at Junction 33 in Rotherham.

Both are hugely controversial. Smithy Wood would destroy ancient woodland while the £40m Rotherham project, which has been approved, could cause extra congestion on the already rammed Parkway.

Less tangibly, but no less eagerly awaited, is an announcement by Sheffield City Council about which local firms have benefited from the authority bringing IT services in-house.

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The authority announced 18 months ago it was pulling a £11m of work from outsourcer Capita in a drive to buy local.

Small IT and tech firms foresaw a bonanza and the new regime is set to take effect in 2020, but no public announcement of the winners has yet been made.

Less likely to happen is a resolution to the row over the region’s oven-ready £900m devolution deal.

The cash has been frustratingly out of reach since Barnsley and Rotherham pulled out of the agreed Sheffield City Region deal to pursue a One Yorkshire ambition involving a majority of the councils in the county. That was in 2017.

Since then the government has not budged on the bigger plan while continuing to encourage smaller city-based deals. West Yorkshire in particular appears close to an agreement. If that happened One Yorkshire would be dead - but relations in South Yorkshire so sour there would still be no guarantee of the SCR deal being approved and the cash and powers being released..

One consequence of not having a devolution deal is the region missing out on automatic millions from the government’s Transforming Cities Fund. Instead it has had to bid in competition with the many other areas without devolution. An announcement is expected in 2020.

A guaranteed bright spot next year is the Great Northern Conference coming to the Cutler’s Hall in Sheffield on Thursday March 19.

This major meeting of northern leaders will set the agenda for the future of the Powerhouse and raise Sheffield’s profile within it.