Council seeks government help over Local Plan row

A council has asked the government if it can help find a solution in a row over plans to build on 14 greenbelt sites in South Yorkshire.

Sheffield's Local Plan is a blueprint for how the city will be developed up to 2039, but it has prompted hundreds of objections from local residents, with Sheffield actor Sean Bean also joining the lobby to protect fields near his childhood home.

Objectors have voiced their anger that the majority of the 3,500 homes, cemeteries and schools were planned for just the S35 and S12 postcode areas.

Labour council leader Fran Belbin said that after 19 months of objections, she had written to the government to ask if it could help solve a "really difficult" situation.

The long-awaited plan, which is already years overdue, has been delayed yet again after planning inspectors sought more details about certain aspects.

A fifth round of public consultation is now under way, which Belbin said was unprecedented.

"Sheffield needs an up-to-date Local Plan," she said.

"Without one, the city has less control over future development and is more vulnerable to speculative applications, including on greenbelt.

"I have written to the government to ask if there is any way we can find a solution.

"We're in a really difficult situation as the Local Plan is a statutory process and I'm hoping we can have some flexibility from government."

Belbin said there was no scope to rewrite the plan unless the council started from scratch, but that would mean even higher housing targets.

"The current plan takes us up to 2039," she explained.

"If we were to start again, we would have to look at another 15-year period going into the mid-2040s - so the housing target would go up because there would be additional years."

Residents in the S35 and S12 postcode areas have questioned why more affluent areas in the south west of the city were not taking a share of the development.

Belbin said: "We are completely restricted from going into the Peak District, but we are really aware people feel it's very unfair the proposed greenbelt development is concentrated in S35 and S12.

"We're working within extremely constrained circumstances. The planning framework is imperfect.

"It's something the government is looking to change, but those changes aren't going to come through in time for our Local Plan."

Labour and the Green Party previously supported the plan, while the Liberal Democrats previously voted against it.

Reform UK councillors have said they wanted it paused while there was an "immediate independent audit" of all brownfield sites and underused land.

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