Sheffield houses: Update on plans for 4,200 homes on ‘brownfield’ sites amid green belt row
Officials have given an update on plans for 4,200 homes on ‘brownfield’ sites in Sheffield.
Sheffield City Council and government agency Homes England are working on three schemes set to see thousands more people living in or near the city centre.
They are all on previously-used ‘brownfield’ sites and will see millions invested in new neighbourhoods.
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The update comes after councillors last week voted to approve plans for more than 3,500 homes and 130 acres for business on 14 green belt sites, to meet government targets.
The city council says “all options to build within non-green belt areas have been fully explored, or maximised.”
At Moorfoot, the city council and Homes England say they are pulling together plans to secure funding to transform the area into a ‘cosmopolitan neighbourhood’ with 2,000 homes ‘focused’ on professionals.
The proposals include converting the giant Moorfoot office into more than 700 flats and a new block on the former Wickes DIY store site, which Homes England bought last year.
Meanwhile, plans for 1,300 new homes in Neepsend are currently out to market to secure a development partner in autumn, a Homes England spokesperson said.
The project already has the promise of £67m from government to ‘support land assembly and infrastructure’.
The ‘heritage-led’ regeneration will celebrate the area’s unique historic and natural assets and feature family housing and waterside living.
The council and Homes England are also pulling together plans to secure funding for a new development at Sheffield station with residential, employment, retail and leisure uses. It is set to have 900 homes.
The cleared site outside the station is owned by Homes England and is earmarked for an office or hotel.
The agency is also planning a new pedestrian and cycle bridge to connect communities on either side of the railway.
Sheffield City Council says it has drawn up plans for 25,572 homes on brownfield sites and estimates a further 7,675 dwellings will be built on plots expected to come available in coming years, the majority of which will be brownfield.
Together they add up to 33,247 brownfield homes.
It means “all developable and available land for housing within the existing urban areas - public and private - has already been identified” and “all options to build within non-green belt areas have been fully explored, or maximised.”
But it is not enough to meet a shortfall identified by government inspectors, which wants 38,012 new homes by 2039.
It is this shortfall that has led to plans build on green belt.