King's Tower Sheffield: Readers divided as Yorkshire's tallest tower is approved

On Tuesday, January 9, Sheffield City Council’s Planning and Highways Committee granted approval for the 40-storey residential tower, King’s Tower.

The building will have 428 co-living units for families of different sizes to live. These private units are expected to come fully furnished and potentially include workspaces, meeting rooms, a cinema, gym, bar, and roof terrace.

Production begins with the demolition of the current building, a space abandoned when Primark moved out seven years ago.

The Star’s Facebook post on the story amassed over 147 comments from locals who shared their opinions on the approval.

There was a mix of contrasting opinions on the large build.

Steve Platts said: “Waiting to see this inevitably bring absolutely nothing to the area, other than being an out of place monstrosity, stick there for no reason.”

Other users argued that the city centre needs more residential properties.

Caroline Burke replied to Steve, saying: “We need more residential properties in the city centre, like other major cities.”

Other commenters mentioned the lack of skyscrapers when Sheffield is compared to the likes of Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool.

Dianne Vincent said: “How many more apartments do we need in Sheffield? Totally out of keeping with the wonderful architecture which exists. What an eyesore!”

John Moffatt said: “Let’s just remember that we need housing, we need investment, we need jobs and we need the council tax income.”

The Star’s readers also shared their opinions on our X post. There, the replies were mostly negative, with users asking: “What happened to green

Sheffield?”

There are concerns from councillors regarding potential overheating issues.

Debate continues to divide our online community, but the proposal will still go ahead as private company CJs Ltd (trading as Oppidan Life) and SFGE Properties Ltd’s application has now been pushed through.