New Sheffield green belt sites identified for building homes
Sheffield Council has identified 10 plots of green belt land where 3,529 new homes could be built over the next 14 years.
The council has also had to find more land to be used to provide employment opportunities, in order to comply with the findings of government planning inspectors who held a series of public hearings last year into the council’s draft Local Plan.
Councils produce Local Plans in order to identify what types of development can take place in all areas of the city. Sheffield’s plan is expected to come into use in 2026 and will cover the period up to 2039.
The inspectors told the council that, while it is important to protect the city’s green belt from development, it is also important to meet its identified housing and employment needs.
They decided that the council would have to identify plots for building 38,012 new homes to be constructed over the duration of the Local Plan – 3,500 more than the council wanted.
Since then, the council has been looking into additional areas of the city that could be used to meet the increased need. It decided that all brownfield sites have been exhausted, so sites within the green belt have been put forward.
This is the shortlist of sites proposed:
- Land to the south of The Wheel (S35 8RY) and land between Creswick Avenue and Yew Lane (S35 8QN) – 609 homes.
- Land to the west of Grenoside Grange, Fox Hill Road (S35 8QS) and Holme Lane Farm, Halifax Road, Grenoside (S35 8PB) – 188.
- Land at Wheel Lane and Middleton Lane (S35 8PU) – 148.
- Land to the east of Chapeltown Road, Chapeltown (S35 9ZX) – 549.
- Land at Forge Lane, Oughtibridge (S35 0GG) – 69.
- Land between Storth Lane and School Lane – 103.
- Land between Bramley Lane and Beaver Hill Road, Handsworth – 868.
- Land to the south of White Lane, Gleadless Townend (S12 3HS) – 304.
- Land between Lodge Moor Road and Redmires Conduit – 258.
- Land to the north of Parkers Lane, Dore – 82.
One site at Handsworth Hall Farm has been proposed for seven homes plus 20 hectares of employment land.
The following sites have been proposed for employment allocation:
- Land bordered by M1, Thorncliffe Road, Warren Lane, and White Lane – 18.06 hectares.
- Hesley Wood, north of Cowley Hill, Chapeltown – 13.35 hectares.
- Land to the south of the M1 Motorway Junction 35, Ecclesfield – 15.94 hectares.
The council says that the current total area of green belt land in the city is 9,061 hectares.
The amendments to the boundary proposed in the report would result in 327.45 hectares of green belt being removed – 3.6% of the total area.
The proposals will be discussed at a meeting of the council’s strategy and Resources Committee next Wednesday (April 30) and their proposal will be presented to the full council on Wednesday, May 14.
A public consultation on the shortlist will take place this summer before the the government inspectors’ examination continues later in the year.
When the plan is adopted, it will also settle the major controversy caused by the council’s proposals. A local campaign, backed by both Sheffield South East Labour MP Clive Betts and LibDem ward councillors, vigorously opposed a proposal to designate land off Eckington Way near Crystal Peaks as a site for travelling showpeople plus space for industrial units.
Campaigners including the politicians voiced their views at a public hearing last year.