Sheffield MP objects to “incredibly unfair” green belt housing plans sites
Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield South East, has objected to proposals for land near Crystal Peaks
A Sheffield MP has raised “grave concerns” that objections to proposals to build new homes on green belt land in the city have not been properly listened to.
Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield South East, has objected to proposals in the draft Sheffield Local Plan on both the use of green belt land and plans to use land off Eckington Way near Crystal Peaks for a travelling showpeople and as an industrial site.
The plan sets out where all types of development can take place in Sheffield up to 2039.
There was a huge outcry when government inspectors examining the plan told Sheffield City Council last year that it needed to look at green belt sites. This was in order to allow an extra 3,529 homes to be built to take the total up to 38,012, plus another 52.8 hectares of employment land.
The 14 new sites identified are mainly in the S13 area around Handsworth and in S35 near Chapeltown and Grenoside. A second round of public consultation on changes to the plan closed on May 5.
Before the green belt issue, the main controversy centred around the Eckington Way plan.
Mr Betts said in a letter to supporters of his opposition to the plan that the Planning Inspectorate’s final report will reveal what proposal will go for discussion to the council’s key strategy and resources committee. If approved, it will then move on to a full council vote in July, he said.
“Ahead of those meetings I will be working with residents and councillors to get some common sense back into this whole process.
“It is not clear with the new composition of the council exactly what will happen, but I do think we now have a key moment to get a significant rethink on the current plan.
“None of our objections or concerns over Eckington Way have been answered by either the council or the Planning Inspectorate which make the site impossible to deliver on.”
Labour is still the largest group on the council following its heavy losses to Reform UK and the Greens in the May 7 election but the top three parties now have similar numbers of members. Labour are on 25, Liberal Democrats 22, Green Party 20.
The LibDems have decided to go into opposition and left a joint administration with Labour and the Greens because of their own opposition to the green belt proposals.
Reform UK now look to have 11 members as two newly-elected councillors are apparently set to stand as Independents instead. Their leader Coun John Hesketh told the Local Democracy Reporting Service at the election count that opposition to building on the green belt is a key issue for them.
Former city council leader Mr Betts said in his latest submission to the planning inspectors: “I do accept that we must build on green belt. Where I will commend the council is they have genuinely taken a brownfield first approach.
“My office and I are yet to find a brownfield site that is not already allocated, unsuitable for development, or part of the windfall provision outlined in the Plan.
“However, the distribution of green belt sites remains incredibly unfair on the south east and north east of the city which remain the poorer parts of Sheffield compared to the more affluent west.
“On that basis I cannot tell my constituents this Local Plan is fair.
“This further submission I hope reinforces my deeply-held misgivings about the current Local Plan and that the council have failed to justify their decisions to show this Local Plan is positively prepared and effective, and for specific sites that they are even deliverable.
“The main modifications do not answer these questions either and leave me deeply confused as to how we have got here.”
Mr Betts added:”I will of course await the final report and trust that the objections I and my constituents have raised will at last be responded to there, but I do remain deeply sceptical that this Local Plan is fair or takes into account quite technical and valid issues with some of the sites included.”
On Eckington Way, he said: “Given the fundamental constraints raised about
the site such as its topography, pylons and shallow gas main running through the site and road network reaching 100 per cent capacity, I am also shocked the inspectorate would consider this site viable, deliverable and sustainable.”
Mr Betts said the council used “flawed logic” to exclude Eckington Way from consideration for housing because it was already earmarked for the other uses. He accused the council of being “deeply cynical” on the issue.
Gaps in information pointed out by Mr Betts include the SES29 site at Handsworth Hall Farm, Finchwell Road, where land ownership is more complicated than at first thought.
On SES30 – land between Bramley Lane and Beaver Hill Road – Mr Betts said: “A recent successful application to South Yorkshire Heritage List has identified a Quaker burial site in the north-east portion of the site.
“This is the same area where one of the access points to the proposed housing estate has been proposed.
“Alongside all the other constraints with this site, I must repeat that this site is simply not deliverable.”
He added: “In addition, I am aware there is further work to get heritage recognition for the site of the Battle of Orgreave as well which, if successful, will also have consequences for the deliverability of the Handsworth Hall Farm site (SES29).
“Together, this represents yet another fundamental constraint on SES30 and possible constraint on SES29 that brings into question how deliverable these sites are in this Local Plan.”
Mr Betts said that North East Derbyshire’s Local Plan could also be affected by proposals for 304 homes on site SS19 off White Lane, Gleadless Townend, near the border of the two council areas.