Agenda item

7.1

The Committee received a presentation from Simon Vincent, Strategic Planning and Service Manager, Planning Service, on progress regarding the Draft Sheffield Plan.

Mr Vincent reported on the aims and objectives of the Plan, which would replace the Sheffield Core Strategy (2009) and the Unitary Development Plan (1998), how the Plan would affect southeast Sheffield, public consultation on the Plan, which runs from 9th January to 20th February, 2023, and the steps in terms of finalising the Plan, which would hopefully be adopted in December 2024.

The Chair opened up the meeting for questions regarding the presentation

Questions

Questioner 1 (Gillian) - There is already a Gypsy/Traveller site at Holbrook, has this been revamped or closed.

(Answer) – The existing site at Holbrook would remain.  There are two existing sites in Sheffield at present at Holbrook and another South West of the City.  These sites would remain as these met the need of the gypsy and travellers.  They are looking to extend the Redmires site.  The council has to legally provide the sites.  The need that hasn’t been met is sites for traveling show people, at the moment they have a very cramped site in Chapeltown, which operates without any problems, and they are struggling for space and have been looking for a new site for a long time and we think this site fits the criteria that we have been using to select sites.  There would be access to the site from Eckington Way, and most of the site would be developed for light industry and compatible with the adjoining houses, it would not be anything noisy that’s creates disturbance.

(Gillian) – From an employee point of view, the Long Acre Estate site creates a lot of fly tipping, will provision be in place to stop this happening at Drakehouse as well?

(Answer) – This will be quite a different setup in terms of the travelling show people as these are essentially a business who operate fairground rides and happen to live in mobile homes, it does not cause any problems in Chapeltown and would not envisage it would cause problems here to.

Questioner 2 (Michael Meredith) –you mentioned about 5F in Owlthorpe.  When they were first brought out they were C,D,E and F, then F was dropped out, I believe it was dropped out because you couldn’t get access to the road at the top, because it was thought it was too dangerous, where you going to get access to this site, is it going to come through site e or how you going to get access to it?

(Answer) – Access is still an issue that would need to be looked at but would expect it to come from the main road it would not be from site E so it is likely to come off the main road.

(Michael Meredith)- What about the Fire Brigade at the top, you’ve put the fire station there, I doubt if you could get it past? You mentioned you want to build 150 houses, the site is only the same size as site E which has 74 houses, what are you going to build high rise?

(Answer) – No it wouldn’t be high rise in that location, but it might be a mix of houses of different sizes, so you might expect to see some smaller units.

(Michael Meredith) – Site E is matchbox size, they are horrendous.

(Answer) – New houses that will be build would have to comply with the new space standards, that the plan would introduce and that would be an improvement in terms of what has been built in the city by private developers, across Sheffield in the last 10 years.

(Micheal Meredith) – Are you aware that you are proposing to build on the Owlthorpe grassland and grazing project, which is part of the Owlthorpe heritage and nature trail?

(Answer) – The site was part of a whole series of sites, which were considered for housing and unitary development plan.  We did look at whether some of that land could be reallocated as part of the new plan.  It was probably 10 years ago when it was consulted on, these were the first steps taken with the plan and has taken a long time to get to this stage.  During that period national planning policy has changed quite a lot and so there is big emphasis on providing more housing and one of the decisions the council has had to make is whether to build on greenbelt land, which is designated as green belt or to allow some development to take place on greenfield sites which are not greenbelt.  Owlthorpe F is not greenbelt, it is a greenfield site, but we have to show that we are maximising all opportunities to deliver new homes within the existing built-up areas of Sheffield to satisfy the inspector.

(Michael Meredith) – So the inspector at the planning inspectorate, I suggested that Avant homes move its thing to Norton Aerodrome.  Sheffield City Council’s barrister said that he thought it was a good idea.  I explained that there was already funding from the government for Owlthorpe from natural England for the Owlthorpe Heritage nature trail and also there is funding to redevelop the Norton Aerodrome.  Sheffield City Council’s barrister thought it was an extremely good idea.  You are destroying grassland if you go ahead with this proposal.

(Answer)- We have had to balance a number of different objectives, in setting out the development proposals and the plan, none of which if we met the full government housing need figure, we would have had to build 52,000 homes, over Sheffield in the next 17 years.

Questioner 3 (Dawn Spier) – I think it great that the Council have out some literature out to people on the cost of living and fuel crisis.  It good that there is information going out there to people that need it.  With the new builds that are coming are we going to be looking at more insulation, solar energy and anything else going in, or is it just to going to be the basic minimum standards, are we looking to up our game in Sheffield and make sure the new houses are fit for 25-30 years looking into the future, how the fuel crisis is hitting people now, this isn’t going to stop, it is going to continue , so are we going to be looking into the future and actually making sure the houses are more insulated and are we using renewable energy to sustain those houses?

(Answer) - The plan includes a policy that requires all new developments to reduce carbon emissions by 75% from 2025 and be net zero carbon by 2030, which is inline with the council target that was set as part of the climate emergency.  We would like to be moving faster than that, but we have to balance the National Planning policy and number of different priorities.  We have had a lot of debate with councillors about whether we could go faster, but one of the other things we want to try and do for people is deliver more affordable housing in the city.  One of the things that was balanced very carefully was all the policies in the plan and many of them have an impact on the cost of building and we must show that the plans we are putting forward are deliverable and are economically viable.  We have had a piece of work done, that looked at all the impact of the policies on the viability of the development and what that work tells us is that if we were to go net zero carbon straight away in Sheffield as soon as the plan is adopted at the end of 2024, that wouldn’t be viable unless we didn’t deliver any of the affordable housing in the city at all because of the costs to the developer, so we have had to balance a number of different objectives.  The plan will have to be reviewed every 5 years and by 2029 we would expect a lot of the technology to have got a lot cheaper particularly air source heat pumps to be a lot cheaper for people to install.  At that point we think we will be in a better position to move towards being net zero carbon from 2030, but it has been a balance, we would like to move faster but the best way of doing it would be for the government nationally to change the building regulations, but at the moment Sheffield has different policies to other places and development would go elsewhere.  We are going as fast as we can, with the evidence available to us, but we do share the concerns about delivering energy efficient homes and homes that are cheaper to heat.

(Dawn Spier) – Air source heat pumps are very expensive to put in and the payback is not as good as we like, but the focus really wants to be on insulation.  You can insulate a home now at fantastically reduced rates.  It is 2/3 off what people are paying to heat their homes now and if we concentrate more on not using more energy but insulating, so that people aren’t using the energy in the first instance would be the best way to look at it.

(Answer) – Insulation is really important and changes to the building regulations were made last year will result in a 30% reduction in carbon emissions, most of that is achieved through better insulation.  New housing that are built will from this year will have to comply with the new standards for the best insulation you can get.  The next step would be to use air source heat pumps and solar panels on roofs to reduce the regulation energy used in buildings.  Going forward we do expect air source heat pumps to get a lot cheaper over the next 3 years.

(Questioner 4) – Thank you for listening and taking on board all the evidence we provided about Owlthorpe fields, we do appreciate that and are absolutely chuffed to bits about it in the Local Plan.  OAG, Dawn and others were part of the Nature recovery Sheffield and I know there was a declaration of an nature emergency in 2020-21, I just wondered how that is incorporated into the local plan please?

(Answer) – One of the biggest changes that’s going to happen is around biodiversity net gain, which will require all developments to show at least a 10% benefit in terms of biodiversity and that will apply nationally from November this year.  The plan talks about applying that biodiversity net gain, one of the things that wherever possible biodiversity net gain should be  on the development site, but in some cases that wont be possible, for example high rise apartments in the city centre is going to be difficult to achieve net gain, so some net gain will be offsite and the work that is going on around the local nature recovery networks is mapping out the networks and identifying opportunities where money from evelopemtns can be used and biodiversity net gain can be used to improve habitats right across the city.  We are looking at how that mechanism will work and we will produce some supplementary planning guidance that will sit alongside the local plan, which will explain the process in more detail.

Questioner 5 (Ken Whetter) – How will the mass travel corridors work and to what extent will they end or help to stop all the traffic and congestion in our part of the city?

(Answer) – The level of development that is proposed across the city, transport is critical to ensure the city doesn’t grind to a halt.  We are still doing some transport modelling to look at the key impact of all of the development that is proposed, producing a separate infrastructure delivery plan that will set out the specific proposals to tackle some of the transport problems in different part of the city. In terms of the mass transit corridors, the detail of those, will be worked up through specifics in the schemes that come forward through the transport planning service within the council, there will be specific consultations with communities around achieving the objectives.  Its about better public transport, better bus routes, cycle routes, better pedestrian facilities , but the specifics will vary from corridor to corridor.  In some corridors it might be about directing cycle routes off the main roads, onto the network of smaller roads and identifying a network of routes around the wider corridor, than on the main road itself.  In other cases, it might be a cycle lane on the main road.  It will depend on the location ad the details will follow once specific schemes have been adopted.

Questioner 6 (Jane Finney) - Can you quantify the area that’s been adopted to the greenbelt of Mosborough moor?

(Answer) –It is a fairly large area, approximately 10-12 hectares.

(Jane Finney) – Are there any plans to initiate some electric plug ins for vehicles on these main highways?

(Answer) – The building regulations nationally have changed recently and there is a requirement for electric vehicle charging and cabling for all new developments.  The detail is in the plan and it goes a bit further that the regulations in terms of non-residential developments.

(Councillor Gail Smith) – I had a few emails about the traveller site.  You say the site is only for showman travellers, how are you going to stop any other gypsies from using that site and how can you reassure people who will live close to that, that it will only be for showmen.  How would that work?

How did we get all the way from Chapeltown to the Southeast before we found another site in Sheffield?

(Answer) - Its very likely that there would be leased or sold to the business, they are effectively a business and a number of families that operate the fairground rides,  It would be a property transaction with them to enable them to live there and operate their business there, so its no different to the Council leasing land to any other business, so it would be restricted to them.  We have done a wide search right across the City for suitable sites and have discussed several options with members over the summer last year and discounted a number of options.  We have a series of criteria which was used to determine the best site and this site came out as the top scoring site.

A list of the criteria used would be provided and members can respond and indicate if they agree or not.  For everyone, present the objection and evidence as to why you think that site is not appropriate.  We may have got it wrong, but this is a consultation, so we want to hear from people about whether that is the right site and if people have got alternatives and suggestion then these need feeding on.

(Councillor Bryan Lodge) – You will see Farrar’s funfairs, like the Christmas market that was put on by William Percival Farrar’s Funfairs, in and around Sheffield, they are Sheffield people, he has got the lease on the site at Chapeltown.  The Christmas market and the bars such as the Alpine Lodge.  Altogether he has 18 trailers in that site and the site is where they store a lot of things as well as the rides, they have out in the city centre.  It very emotive when you see it down as a traveller site, but I think it understanding what it is and as Simon said they would be leasing the site and managing and operating it themselves, more that seeing it as an open traveller site.  If you think about the summer beach that they put on in the Peace Gardens, they bring the cabins they have to the Christmas fayre, bars etc and this is ones of the sites they are looking at because they’re current site is now full of things and I think they are looking to expand for more space, so hopefully its reassuring people it is not going to be an open site for travellers coming in and out.

(Councillor Kurtis Crossland) – If its only for traveling showman, do we know when they will be in the area, is there a calendar of that and anyone who has been to Crystal Peaks over the Christmas period will know the car park can get full, so if we have a calendar of when people are going to be in the area could we even use it as an overflow car park when it isn’t being used to store trailers?

(Answer) – It’s not going to be a site where they come and go, they will live there permanently, it’s a permanent site so they would have static caravans on the site essentially.  They are not going to be driving back and to with caravans.  It would be like you see at a holiday camp with permanent caravans on the site.

(Councillor Kurtis Crossland) – I am delighted about the Owlthorpe site and I think we must commend the work that has good in by the local groups as well, it takes a lot of work to write that report.  Its good news that its been designated as local greenspace which I think is a first for Sheffield and you said it should have the same legal grounding as the green belt, so why not greenbelt?  I’m just worried that the local plan is up for review every 5 years, it could change?

(Answer) – In legal terms it has the same level of protection as the greenbelt.  We considered long and hard about changes to the greenbelt boundary and to some extent there is a tactical decision made by the council not to make wholesale changes to the greenbelt boundary and that is because there are lots of developers out there who will be arguing that land in the greenbelt should be released for development.  The council adds land to the greenbelt or alters the alters the greenbelt in lots of different places, as this adds ammunition to those developers who say well the council has made a change here, therefore we should be allowed to make a change here.  Its really on legal advice that tactically this is better thing for the council to do to resist the pressure we will get developers and house builders to release large chunks of greenbelt in the city.  To reiterate we were really impressed by the submission around the local greenspace designation and the wildlife site designation at Owlthorpe.  It’s a exemplary piece of work in how a community can present evidence.  It gives strong protection to that land and don’t expect any objections to it as its owned by the council, if it was privately owned, you would probably get some objections, but I’m sure that won’t be the case.

(Councillor Bob McCann) – Going back to the traveller site and if you read the description of it, its not actually a traveller site as such, it’s a business site, so why have we put the name traveller site on it, it the connotation that goes with it that has caused a problem, so can we find a better way of describing it?

(Answer) – There are a number of different groups if you like within the gypsy and traveller community, travelling showpeople are one of those groups and there are also what you may call the mainstream travellers and then you’ve also got new age travellers as well, some of whom are currently camped on Clubmill Road near Parkwood Springs in the north of the city.  When we do out gypsy and traveller need assessment we have to take into account of all those different communities, so they are classed as gypsies and travellers under the planning definition and so that we call it gypsy and traveller site, but yes I accept its misleading in terms of the use, it is a business use, but people happen to live on the site.

7.2