Sheffield green belt: New protest planned as government inspectors set to consider plots
Campaigners are set to protest at Sheffield Town Hall as councillors discuss green belt housing plans.
Residents affected by the proposals are set to gather outside the town hall at 1pm on Wednesday ahead of a full council meeting at 2pm.
Protest groups sprung up after Sheffield City Council announced plans for more than 3,500 homes on 14 green belt sites to meet government housing targets.
Katie Barber, posting on the ‘Wharncliffe Side - Let’s breathe’ Facebook group, said the aim was to show the council they hadn’t given up and “any further developments they may suggest in s35 are a very bad idea for the council.”
A Sheffield City Council spokesperson said the list of 14 sites had been submitted to government inspectors as part of what is called the Local Plan.
They added: “There have been no changes to that list – it will be up to the inspectors to make recommendations on whether any other sites that have been put forward should be allocated.”
The inspectors are set to hold a series of hearings, with the first at 9.30am on Tuesday September 30 at Sheffield Town Hall.
More details on the examination website.
Once the hearings are over, inspectors will issue a preliminary report which may contain changes to make the Local Plan ‘sound’.
Those changes will be subject to more public consultation - likely to be early next year.
They will then produce a final report which will come back to Sheffield City Council for a decision, expected in summer next year, the spokesperson added.
Each development would then need to go through the normal planning process - when people can object again.
The Local Plan is a blueprint for development in Sheffield over the next 14 years. It includes targets set by government for 38,000 new homes, 654 acres of employment land.
The authority says it has put forward plans for 25,572 homes on brownfield sites and estimates a further 7,675 dwellings will be built on plots expected to become available in coming years, the majority of which will be brownfield.
It means “all options to build within non-green belt areas have been fully explored, or maximised.”
The shortfall led to proposals to build 3,529 homes on 14 green belt sites.