Council leader is “hugely sympathetic” but “will have to look at some green belt development”
"I don't want to give people the impression we can just change this plan overnight. It will be really tricky to change, but I’m very willing to look at it”
The leader of Sheffield City Council and leader of Sheffield Green Party have met green belt campaigners in threatened sites.
Council leader Fran Belbin and Councillor Angela Argenzio, leader of Sheffield Greens, met with residents and campaigners to walk three of the city's most controversial greenbelt sites on Saturday.
The council's proposed Local Plan includes the hugely controversial development of 327 hectares of green space.
It is overwhelmingly concentrated in just a few postcodes including S13, which is expected to lose all its greenbelt and accommodate half of the additional homes planned for the city.
The two councillors walked sites in S35 in north Sheffield, Handsworth Hall Farm in the east, and Bramley Common in the southeast.
Coun Belbin praised residents and campaigners for being “so well organised, well informed and really considerate of each other".
She said: “I'm hugely sympathetic. I do really understand the issues that were put to us.
“Across the road from Ecclesfield school, there's already some warehousing in the middle of that piece of land. When you look at that and think, that is going to go from a landscape to essentially housing and warehouses. You can really understand why people feel so strongly about it.
“They're really nice green spaces,” Cllr Belbin reflected. “We saw people who were out there using it as a leisure space.
“Seeing it in person for yourself, obviously builds your empathy with the campaigners.”
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Coun Belbin said something that particularly struck her was how close the developments would be to each other.
She said: “In Woodhouse for example, we talked about flood risk. It's not just about the flood risk on one particular site. There's building over the road in Rotherham that will also potentially be adding pressure."
Following the visit, Cllrs Belbin and Angela Argenzio put together a list of questions to ask the planning team, covering areas from ecological issues to penalties, and the cumulative impact on flood risk and resource planning.
Coun Belbin said: “We have to see if we can weave a way through that will work, if not for everybody, for more people.
“I think, probably, we will have to look at some greenbelt development.
"I don't want to give people the impression we can just change this plan overnight. It will be really tricky to change. But I’m very willing to look at it, very willing to work with people on it.”
Coun Belbin warned one of the big challenges is the constraints Sheffield City Council is under from national governments housebuilding targets.
“If we reject this plan, the risk is that we have to start all over again,” she said. “That would mean that our target would almost certainly go up.”
Coun Belbin said Sheffield is short of all types of housing, from one bed flats right through to big family homes.
“In my ward at the moment, I have got people living in massively overcrowded accommodation, kids can't afford to leave, they can't afford to buy a house. We know that house prices have gone through the roof because of the lack of supply.
“We've got people in temporary accommodation, that costs the council lots of money, because we do not have enough housing.
“By having a Local Plan, we can specify affordable housing targets, we can ensure we build social housing, and we can ensure we are getting the right property mix.”