Sheffield Local Plan: 13,400 new homes are not yet built despite planning permission

There were 13,400 dwellings with full planning permission which have not yet been completed, as of March this year.

Planning permission lasts for five years but the city has a shortage of housing.

And the delayed Local Plan has been blamed on changes to Government planning policy and the pandemic by Deputy Council Leader Coun Julie Grocutt.

The council is proposing another delay to its new Local Plan and does not expect it to be in place until 2024, a year after a Government set deadline.

It leaves the city at risk from unrestricted developments with policies from the Unitary Development Plan in 1998 and the Core Strategy in 2009.

Coun Grocutt said: “The Government has changed the way it calculates housing need and the changes were introduced after the Local Plan Issues and Options consultation last autumn.

“The changes to the Government’s standard methodology for calculating housing need has led to a 35 per cent increase in Sheffield’s figure.

“The city’s housing need figure for the next 18 years has increased from 40,000 homes to over 53,000 homes.

“This potentially has big implications for how many new homes might have to be built on greenfield sites and green belt.

“We believe this decision is politically motivated – government is wanting to protect Tory shires in the south from development – rather than based on actual housing need.”

Coun Grocutt said the council needed time to look at the implications of accommodating the extra housing instructed by government and fully consider the different options.

She added: “We have been clear throughout all of this – we need to deliver the right homes, in the right places, protect our green spaces and ensuring there is the right infrastructure in place, or planned for, to support communities.

“The impact of pandemic has caused delays, the consultation last year took place two months later than planned due to staff having to work from home and that had a knock on effect on the timetable.”