Agenda item

Sheffield Plan Consultation

It was moved by Councillor Ian Auckland, seconded by Councillor Steve Ayris, that this Council:-

(a)       is committed to defending Sheffield’s reputation as the greenest city in the country – affording our green and open spaces the protection they deserve;

(b)       recognises the importance of demonstrating a five-year economically-deliverable supply of housing within the City’s Local Plan;

(c)        therefore notes with concern the current Green Belt Review taking place at the same time as the Sheffield Local Plan is being developed;

(d)       also notes with caution a number of urban green spaces, parks and recreation grounds that have been earmarked as an ‘identified opportunity site’ and therefore ‘suitable for housing’;

(e)       notes that the independent URBED report ‘Sheffield: Garden City?’ has much higher estimates for homes on brownfield and urban sites than the Council’s own projections, for example, through ‘Urban remodelling’ of the Neepsend and Attercliffe areas of the city, this could supply 8,714 homes and 14,924 respectively, but the Sheffield City Council report has only 1,900 and 2,400 homes in these areas, and believes that these higher figures would take the strain off other places and preserve our green open spaces;

(f)        notes that there is currently planning permission in Sheffield for 7,840 new dwellings that are currently not being developed or are incomplete;

(g)       notes that developers will often shun brownfield sites for development as it is often easier and more profitable to them to develop on greenfield sites;

(h)       however, believes that using the New Homes Bonus to invest in brownfield sites and bring more empty homes back into use, could avoid the need to concrete over greenfield and Green Belt land;

(i)         regrets that in the last financial year only £0.3m of the New Homes Bonus was spent on enhancing hard to develop sites and bringing long term empty houses back into use, whilst £0.8m was spent on building a cycle path from Park Square to Norfolk Park and £0.6m improving local centres in what is believed to be the Administration’s favoured areas;

(j)         notes that developers will often ‘sit’ on undeveloped land until its value rises and believes the Liberal Democrat policy of a Site Value Rating tax would discourage this;

(k)        furthermore, hopes the Administration will re-investigate density and height requirements within the inner ring-road to help protect important green spaces;

(l)         hopes the Administration will not use the Green Belt Review to remove any of the 125 sites either wholly or partly in the green belt, suggested by developers in the ‘Call for Housing’, from the green belt so they can be developed;

(m)      opposes a wholesale Green Belt review until more innovative ways of delivering Sheffield’s five-year housing supply have been exhausted;

(n)       calls on the Administration to do more to encourage development, such as using the New Homes Bonus to enhance hard to develop sites; and

(o)       calls on the Administration to commit to protecting our parks and urban green spaces, affirming that no parkland will be developed for housing in the next 5 years.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Leigh Bramall, seconded by Councillor George Lindars-Hammond, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:

(a)       recalls the introduction of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) under the Coalition Government, which requires local authorities to have a local plan in place to meet their local housing need over the next 20 years;

(b)       notes that the NPPF requires local authorities to allocate a five-year supply of immediately and economically deliverable sites, which, with severe cuts made by the Coalition Government to brownfield remediation, have made it increasingly difficult to build on brownfield land;

(c)        notes that despite these challenges, the current Administration does not want to build on the green belt and is committed to maximizing building on brownfield land and protecting green spaces;

(d)       further notes that the national planning practice guidance issued by the Coalition Government, which sets out how a Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) should be undertaken, states that ‘sites, which have particular policy constraints, should be included in the assessment for the sake of comprehensiveness’;

(e)       recalls that a SHLAA was published in March 2011, when the main opposition group was in control of the Council, and that this included a list of 17 green belt sites, including one on Baslow Road, Totley;

(f)        therefore believes the main opposition group is displaying breathtaking hypocrisy and a wilful intention to mislead the public on this issue;

(g)       notes that if a local plan isn’t in place, when a developer applies for planning permission on sensitive sites, the Council’s power to refuse is increasingly weakened;

(h)       understands therefore that Sheffield needs to have a local plan in place that complies with the NPPF introduced by the Coalition Government; and

(i)         looks forward to hearing local residents’ views on options for the nature and scale of growth in their areas over the next 20 years, following the publication of the Sheffield Plan: Citywide Options for Growth to 2034.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

Following a Right of Reply by Councillor Ian Auckland, the original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-