City Centre Strategic Vision

We have ambitious plans for our city centre, which will transform the contribution it makes regionally and nationally. Our vision is for a well-connected, high profile city centre with a quality environment that supports business, employment, residential and cultural opportunities.

The city centre will be a hub for learning, employment, and highly skilled jobs but also a place where people can live.

City Centre Vision

Our City Centre Vision sets out our plans to create a thriving, liveable and sustainable city centre.

New homes and neighbourhoods will deliver housing-led growth, with supporting investment vital to creating places where people want to live.

Commercial developments like Heart of the City, West Bar and Castlegate will create space for high value jobs and transform the city centre offer. New places to shop, eat and drink, socialise, explore and relax will create vibrancy. The cultural offer will be transformed, bringing a quality of experience unique in the city region. Enhanced transport connectivity will ensure the opportunities created are accessible to people across South Yorkshire.

Consultation on the City Centre Strategic Vision took place between January and February 2022. The Vision has now been approved by the Council.

New homes

An essential component of the vision is repopulation of the city centre with new homes, amenities and workplaces. To deliver approximately 20,000 new homes we need to create new city centre neighbourhoods; attractive, safe places that will create the demand for new homes and provide the infrastructure and facilities, such as schools, GP’s and outdoor spaces to enable a diverse range of people to live in them.

Creating these permanent communities will mean the city centre is more vibrant, more viable and more sustainable. Encouraging more people to live here will ensure it is activated, populated and safe by day and night. This new population will help to sustain shops, restaurants, bars and a leisure offer, which can then be accessed by, and create jobs for, the wider city. As well as new homes, there will be areas of the city centre and neighbourhoods which have a different primary role, such as commercial, learning or retail. This is about creating opportunities for all of Sheffield’s residents, no matter their background.

Next steps to make the vision happen

The next steps for translating the Strategic Vision into reality include:

1. Priority Neighbourhoods. Preparation of Masterplans and outline design principles to help shape 5 new distinctive neighbourhoods and to guide future development in these areas.
2. A Delivery Plan. To enable key sites to be brought forward for delivery that will catalyse regeneration in their respective priority neighbourhoods.
3. A City Centre Investment Prospectus. This will clearly describe the investment opportunities available within Sheffield’s Central Area.