Decision details

The Leader of the Council is asked to endorse the continuation of the project, including accepting the grant and procurement route and support the introduction of a city centre shuttle bus service.

That the Leader of the Council:

1)    Accepts the £1,390,646.58, grant from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority to fund the development of a Full Business Case, in compliance with the grant terms and conditions and all other related statutory requirements;

2)    Notes and agrees the variation to the procurement of the next stage of design, to enter into a two stage Design and Build contract for this scheme, procured jointly with the Connecting Sheffield Nether Edge scheme; and

3)    Delegates the decision to agree the implementation of a City Centre Shuttle Bus via South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority to the Executive Director of City Futures and the Executive Director for Resources.

The scheme forms a fundamental component of the redevelopment of Sheffield City Centre, providing an improvement in connectivity that supports active travel and public transport to enable sustainable and inclusive employment and residential growth over the next few decades.

The scheme in its current form has been developed to include the aspirations of delivering several wider city centre regeneration projects. The geography of the TCF proposal clearly sits in between the future High Street Fund project on Fargate and the heart of the city project to the west.  This scheme therefore builds upon the strategic principle of ensuring future densification of housing development in the core urban area as well as transforming the public realm to support greater levels of leisure use and thus leading to regeneration. 

The proposal blends previous investment in the public realm including the Moor, Grey to Green 1 and 2 and latest extension to Angel Street, the peace gardens and the Gold Route connecting the city centre with Sheffield Midland Station. In addition to this, the project is being developed alongside private sector the investment proposals including Sheffield Hallam University master plan and several housing developers. This project clearly demonstrates a wider importance for the changing nature and dynamic response to the need for a new city centre.

Issues of traffic congestion and bus journey time reliability restrict public transport patronage growth throughout the city and should the benefits from this scheme not be delivered it is expected to undermine the attractiveness of public transport across the whole city.  This will lead to a higher degree of congestion therefore significantly restricting the city and region’s future productivity and ability to meet its full growth potential. The degree to which potential public transport journey time and reliability improvements could be retained within an alternative Connecting Sheffield Scheme has not been tested and would need to be explored, but the current scheme has been developed as the most optimal solution. 

With forecast growth in both employment and housing in the city centre, without a major improvement in walking, cycling and public transport infrastructure, congestion experienced on the local and strategic road network will increase, with worsening delays for all road users. This will continue to impact negatively on local people in terms of their ability to access employment, training, and education, and will limit investor confidence.

Businesses in the city frequently highlight good levels of accessibility and connectivity to public transport and active travel as being crucial to their successful operation and development. This has been highlighted through the feedback on the scheme.  Not providing these step change improvements will therefore jeopardise the ability to continue to develop the city centre to its full potential. 

If the proposed scheme does not come to fruition, the impact will be an exacerbation of the traffic-related problems outlined above. Furthermore, air quality issues associated with traffic congestion will persist, limiting the ability of local people to lead healthy lives and reducing the ability to achieve local, City Region and national emissions targets.  The scheme also introduced major improvements in public realm which incorporate resilience to climate change and the deliverability of a liveable, attractive space.  These objectives will be severely compromised if the scheme doesn’t progress.

The alternative option is the reinstatement of Pinstone Street and to not accept the grant agreement.  This would also significantly impact the justification for a City Centre Shuttle Bus.  The fees spent to date on the Outline Business Case and all other projects would need to reimburse from revenue allocations and paid back to SYMCA, through clawback mechanisms on the previous grant agreement.

Initial feasibility work has been undertaken with Amey (as the Council’s Highway Delivery Partner) to estimate the potential cost of the reinstatement and the practicalities involved.  The cost has been calculated at £350k, including internal charges, and would require the changes to the traffic control and signal apparatus at the junction of Pinstone Street and Furnival Gate.

The timescale for completing the work have been programmed for 12 weeks, although this depends on mobilisation time, agreed road closures, working arrangements and weather. 

The availability of city centre palette materials would increase costs and delivery timescales.  The reinstatement would need to be progressed as soon as possible, it has been assumed that the materialised used for Pinstone Street reinstatement would be concrete and tarmac, rather than granite and paving stone.  There is then opportunity to revisit and replace these materials with a revised Connecting Sheffield scheme.