Calm before the storm as Sheffield prepares to unleash green belt building frenzy
Sheffield’s Local Plan includes a government target for 38,000 homes by 2039
Sheffield is facing the biggest loss of green belt land ever.
After many consultations and objections, a final report in autumn could approve the loss of 809 acres of the city’s precious green lungs.
Put another way, 3,529 houses and 130 acres of business parks - as well as three schools and two graveyards - could be set to consume 14 green belt sites.
The controversial proposals are in the Local Plan, a blueprint for development in Sheffield up to 2039.
Adoption could come this autumn. But until then housebuilders, landowners, planners and campaigners are all on hold.
Much has been said about the concentration of proposed plots in Handsworth and Grenoside.
Handsworth is earmarked for 1,638 houses on two sites, as well as 49 acres for employment, a secondary school and graveyard.
Grenoside could see 945 homes on three sites, a secondary school, a special needs school and graveyard, all in green belt.
It contrasts sharply with proposals for wealthy Dore which could see just 83 green belt homes, and Lodge Moor, 258.
Further fuelling protesters’ ire is the fact that Sheffield City Council decided not to shortlist a further 24 plots in the south west: 12 in S17 - Dore, Totley and Bradway - seven in Ecclesall, S11, and five in Fulwood and Lodge Moor, S10.
Sheffield’s ongoing need for new homes has also seen some housebuilders fly a kite over the green belt.
Barratt David Wilson Homes is promoting three green belt sites as back-ups if any of the 14 are delayed or rejected.
It has put forward plans for 1,200 homes in Mosborough, 200 in Grenoside and 120 in Stannington.
Sheffield’s issues are not taking place in a vacuum, with proposals just over the border in neighbouring counties, including Derbyshire, set to affect citizens here.
A developer is eyeing a green belt site in Dronfield Woodhouse near Sheffield for 260 houses.
And Mosborough residents are fighting a proposal to remove a 15-acre meadow on Gashouse Lane, Derbyshire, from green belt and use it for 200 houses, business, or a gypsy and travellers’ site.
Sheffield’s Local Plan includes a government target for 38,000 homes by 2039. Sheffield City Council officials say they want to use brownfield - previously used - land first.
The most desirable of all brownfield sites are those in the green belt, such as the old Norton Aerodrome and the former Hepworth's brick-making factory in the Loxley Valley.
In February, Sky-House Co of Sheffield submitted planning permission for a £43m eco-development of 73 homes and a village centre on the site, which was abandoned in the 1990s.
Even more exclusive is Blenheim Homes’ ‘Rolling Hills’ - a plan for eight mansions on the site of the former Dyson brickworks in Totley.
It has already been granted permission for what the firm says will be an ultra-exclusive £100m ‘California-style’ gated community. Prices start at £2.5m just for the land, with homes costing up to £10m each on top of that.
Sheffield City Council says 89 per cent of the new homes in the Local Plan - more than 33,000 - would be on brownfield sites, with thousands in new flats in the city centre.
But that will still see a lot of fields dug up over the next 13 years.