Serious opposition to Meadowhall's £75m extension plan ahead of decision

Sheffield City Council’s planning board will consider the mega-mall’s application for a leisure hall at a meeting on Tuesday. The project is recommended for approval by officials after co-owner British Land halved the size of a previous £150m plan and pushed it back to 2029. The downsizing and delay comes after pressure from Sheffield City Council over concerns it would damage the city centre.

A spokesperson for British Land, said: “This revised outline application follows extensive discussions with Sheffield Council to ensure the additional space is appropriately controlled and therefore complementary to the offer in the City Centre.”

But the new, smaller scheme is still very unpopular with an array of multi-million pound organisations including the owner of the The Moor in Sheffield city centre, NewRiver, Rotherham Council and Dransfield Properties, which owns the Fox Valley shopping centre in Stocksbridge.

This is the third version of a leisure hall at Meadowhall. A £300m project was approved in 2018 but shelved in 2020 due to the pandemic. It was replaced by a £150m scheme in 2021. That was axed after a council chief complained it would create a ‘gross over-supply of leisure’ and damage the city centre.

The revised application states it will ‘complement rather than compete with' shops that could open in the city centre. And it could create up to 850 jobs and add £71.5m to the economy, and create 310 construction jobs a month.