Sheffield’s ambitious Local Plan, our vision that will shape how the city grows over the next decade and more, has taken a big step forward after Government Inspectors shared their initial findings following the latest round of hearings. Government inspectors spent a large part of 2024 considering the plan, with both Sheffield residents and businesses having an input as part of a series of public hearings. Now, the Inspectors have delivered their initial findings.
In a letter to Sheffield City Council published today, the Inspectors welcomed our approach to regeneration and recognised Homes England’s assessment that “Sheffield is one of their top current locations in England for partnership and funding work”.
The letter also contains some recommendations, including the need to provide more houses to ensure there is sufficient choice for the future and to maximise the number of affordable homes we can deliver. The Inspectors have requested that the Council looks at the different types of houses on offer in the Local Plan, ensuring that we offer a suitable mix of homes ranging from houses, to flats and apartments.
Inspectors have concluded that 38,012 additional homes are needed to meet the needs of a growing city, but this means land for an additional 3,529 homes needs to identified. The Inspectors have also asked that the Council finds an additional 53 hectares of land for employment uses, to assist in our ambition to create tens of thousands of new jobs over the course of the Plan and further into the future.
As the next step, the requirement for more houses in the plan means we will need to identify potential new locations for housing development. The current draft Local Plan has already identified all the available brownfield and previously developed sites as part of our ‘brownfield first’ regeneration strategy.
Therefore, the Council must consider other potential housing options, including development on appropriate and sustainable sites within the city’s Green Belt.
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 want to extend our thanks to the Inspectors for their support and the careful consideration that has allowed us to reach this point.
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, before the examination recommences later in the year.