Sheffield Local Plan

Although we welcome the first installment of Sheffield’s long awaited Local Plan – the “Issues and Options” paper – we are concerned that two of the three options include building thousands of homes on the Sheffield Green Belt.

Option A – almost no new houses in the Green Belt

Option B – 5,000 new houses in the Green Belt

Option C – 10,000 new houses in the Green Belt

We clearly favour Option A. This not only protects precious countryside but also helps support more sustainable travel options, retains key community infrastructure and services (shops, surgeries, schools) and helps regenerate the city centre.

Click here to view the Issues and Options document 2020

The public consultation has now closed. This is the first stage of preparing the new Sheffield Plan.

We have specialist staff dedicated to keeping abreast of the ‘Issues and Options Paper’, and we will use this website and our e-newsletters to do this.

This consultation is the first step in a lengthy process to create a new blueprint for how Sheffield will be developed over the next 15 years.

Andy Tickle, head of campaigns, said: “It’s saying broadly the right things and setting out some very clear choices on the future of our precious Green Belt.

“Our initial message to the council is we must aim at maximising urban housing provision as it’s good for the countryside, for the climate emergency and a vibrant local economy.

“But we’re disappointed that meeting radical climate change targets does not seem to be fully factored into the options being consulted on. This will need to change if the council is to meet its own targets to be carbon zero by 2030.”

The council also says that national planning rules on the Green Belt mean that Option A must be considered first as Green Belt land can only be built on in exceptional circumstances.

It raises the possibility of not releasing Green Belt land until much later, to maximise the use of urban and brownfield sites first – an approach long supported by the CPRE.

The council acknowledges that a key message from the last consultation in 2015 was that people want countryside and Green Belt protected.

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