Redmires: Controversial cafe plan in Sheffield's national park withdrawn

Controversial plans for a cafe in Sheffield's piece of the national park have been withdrawn.

Landowner Roy Garvida said it was “not the right time” for multiple reasons. He did not rule out reapplying, but could not say when.

Mr Garvida applied to put a lodge, toilet and generator on Long Causeway, next to Upper Redmires Reservoir and the start of the track to Stanage Pole.

He ran Redmires Cafe from a trailer on the plot starting in August last year. A new building would allow him to open ‘in all weathers and perhaps including the winter’.

Mr Garvida, a nurse who lives on Halifax Road in north Sheffield, said his plans had been hit by the cost-of-living crisis, inflation, work pressures and opposition.

He insisted he had improved the "rubbish-filled area" and picked up dirty needles, nitrous oxide canisters and car parts, and prevented fly-tipping.

But people had protested when he started cutting ash trees suffering from die-back, which he saw as part of a wave of unfair complaints.

Scores of people objected to the cafe in writing to the Peak District National Park Authority, including Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust and Sheffield Bird Study Group.

Ruth Coulthard, of Riverdale Road, Sheffield, wrote: "This is one of the few, remaining unspoilt, natural beauty spots, full of wildlife and wildness. A cafe or any other such retail idea would be an obscene intrusion and would displace wildlife and scar the tranquil environment there."