City to consider Green Belt sites to meet need for thousands more homes
Sheffield needs more than 38,000 additional homes to meet the needs of a growing city – meaning that land for an additional 3,529 homes needs to be identified – according to Government inspectors.
The inspectors, who have delivered their initial findings on Sheffield’s Local Plan – a vision designed to shape how the city grows over the next decade and more – also conclude Sheffield City Council must find an additional 53 hectares of land for employment uses.
This is to assist with the council’s stated ambition to create tens of thousands of new jobs over the course of the Plan and further into the future.
Sheffield City Council notes its current draft Local Plan has already identified all the available brownfield and previously developed sites as part of its “brownfield first” regeneration strategy.
Therefore, it says it must consider other potential housing options, including development on appropriate and sustainable sites within the city’s Green Belt.
A spokesman for the council said: “Meeting the requirements set out by the Inspector will require additional careful work and is not a decision we are taking lightly.
“Having a Local Plan will enable us to provide more affordable homes and land for further skilled jobs for the people of Sheffield.
“Not having a Local Plan leaves the city vulnerable to unplanned development and unable to secure the right standard of development for Sheffield.
“We will now be undertaking a process of identifying potential sites that we feel are suitable to ensure Sheffield’s Local Plan can continue to progress to adoption.
“We will be seeking to ensure that any sites proposed are sustainably located and will avoid proposing sites where there is likely to be significant ecology and landscape impacts.
“The vast majority of our green belt will remain untouched.”
Once the council has taken a formal view on the sites it feels should be put forward, a period of public consultation on these site proposals will follow in the summer.
