Planning, cycling routes and Five Weirs Walk – Sheffield Green Party leader answers your questions

National Loaf on Twitter asked: “What do planning officers need to be doing more, or less, of to ensure that car dependency is not being designed in to Sheffield’s urban environment? Grim to be seeing drive-thrus being built after declaration of climate emergency.”

Coun Johnson said: “What planning officers need first of all is a much stronger set of policies, those all get wrapped up in the local plan. The local plan itself needs to be developed so there is a presumption in designing out unnecessary travel where that can be done. That is all ongoing and it takes quite a long time to put in place but at least we have helped through some progress to mean that is moving now whereas the last few years under the previous administration it was just in deadlock really so nothing happened at all.

“There are two other things, one is an interim climate change policy is on the cards for planning officers. It is one of only two interim planning guidance documents that are currently being proposed which now reflects the importance that climate change is being given in planning decisions.

“The other thing we have done which is quite interesting and pioneering is this idea of a developers’ declaration on climate change. We gained support on this from full council recently and since met with the planning officers and they are keen to implement this.

“What this would do is request when developers put in a new planning application that they have something to say in a bit more detail what they are planning to do to address climate change. It’s not the same as providing any additional obligations but it does require them to set out what they are actually doing.

“I know colleagues on the planning committee have called out some of the inflated claims by developers about their energy efficiency credentials on planning applications where there is a difference between the marketing fluff and the reality of what’s being delivered.

“This developers’ declaration would get them to spell it out. It would also get them to spell out where they are going above and beyond the minimum conditions because we do see some examples of really good designs in the city and often they don’t get much credit because they are just granted planning permission and they don’t get any extra points for the good stuff they are doing so it’s trying to draw that out a bit.

“Planning officers advised it should be possible to have a system where although the content isn’t formally obligatory it will be a requirement to file one of these declarations as part of the pre-planning checks to validate the application. So it does have a bit of teeth to it. It’s something not many councils have done yet.”

Brett Hull asked: “Are there any plans to fix the part of the Five Weirs Walk which washed away and if so, what is the current progress?”

Coun Johnson said: “There are plans, the plans aren’t moving fast enough for my liking but we have been continuing to push on that. The problem is that there is a section of the Five Weirs Walk that has not just degraded but been completely washed away and although it is Amey’s responsibility to maintain that as part of the network in Sheffield there is a genuine difficulty in that the piece of land the path was built on is no longer there. There are questions about whether a neighbouring land owner would be asked to sell another piece of land to them and that all takes quite a long time.

“There are plans that are under way, there have been surveys that we have been chasing up from Amey which are taking a very long time but there is something happening there.

“So it is ongoing, albeit slowly. It’s really frustrating because the Five Weirs Walk is a really good route along the river and just having a small section taken out of it is incredibly damaging to the whole viability of the route so we do want to see that happen as soon as possible.”

Bamford on Twitter asked: “What can we do to make Sheffield a city where people walk, bike or use public transport first?”

Coun Johnson said: “The basics of walking and cycling are that you have got to make it safe and convenient and also pleasant. A lot of the time, the fact is too many journeys in Sheffield on foot or bike are not safe, not convenient and not pleasant either.

“The reason for some of the big long distance routes that we are really pushing is to have cycle superhighways to get in and out of the city centre and pick up large residential areas. So we have got things like the Nether Edge to town route towards Kelham and Neepsend and out towards Attercliffe, Darnall, Meadowhall and beyond there.

“Also, the Sheaf Valley route which goes right from the city centre down to Woodseats and all those areas.

“There are also plans for routes off East Bank Road covering a large area there.

MORE POLITICS: Heather burning, Amey contract and decarbonising buses and trains – Sheffield Green Party leader answers your questions

“The point is designing good quality routes that are up to modern standards, with segregated cycle lanes so people feel safe using them – this means everyone who wants to try out using a bike, not just people who are already experienced cyclists.

“With regards to walking, upgrading pavements to make pedestrians feel they are welcome is a really big step. There are two thing there, one is the idea of continuous footways. This is a newish idea that has been brought in and it’s the idea that instead of pavements stopping at corners to give cars priority, the pavement will continue at that raised level and although cars can cross over at junctions they will be going over a bump to very much signify that pedestrians have right of way, which reflects recent changes to the highway code.

“Obviously that means lots of building out of the existing pavement infrastructure which is where you look at what’s happened with the Amey contract over the last 10 years and you see it’s more and more obvious it was such a missed opportunity. What the Amey contract was doing was replacing an infrastructure that wasn’t fit for purpose because it was built on 1960s motoring designs with exactly the same thing. It wasn’t there to upgrade the system to be ready for the 2020s. It was a massive missed opportunity but we are playing catch up where we can.

“The grey to green scheme is a real success story. What was once a dual carriageway full with some very dirty vehicles all the time is now a really pleasant area that has walking and cycling routes all the way through plus all the planting and flood drainage, biodiversity bug hotels and signage – it looks pretty and it’s a place people want to be. It gives us a vision for how streets in the city centre and some of the district centres should be. Again, there is a lot of money that goes in there but it is certainly something to aspire to.”