FAQs

Connecting Sheffield: City Centre is an ambitious scheme to improve the city centre environment by making it a more attractive place to live, work, and spend time. Alongside projects including Heart of the City, it will be part of the transformation and regeneration of Sheffield city centre into a vibrant, dynamic commercial heart of the City and City Region. The city centre scheme will help to transform the opportunities to walk, cycle and travel by bus across the city centre incorporating ‘green streets; and creating new public spaces. It will: 

• Reduce bus journey times across the city centre.
• Encourage increased bus patronage and reduce reliance on private cars. 
• Create direct, safe and attractive walking and cycling routes through the city centre. 
• Enable more people to walk, wheel or cycle, creating a safer, more vibrant and less polluted environment for city living. 
• Connect to other areas across the city, such as Nether Edge, Kelham Island/Neepsend and along the Lower Don Valley to Attercliffe and Darnall and Magna/Tinsley/Meadowhall. 
• Introduce new pedestrianised areas and create open, attractive places and spaces in the city centre where people want to stop, relax and spend time. 
• Bring the Outdoor City into the City, by creating green streets comprising high-quality planting and greenery, integrated with sustainable urban drainage to help the city become more resilient to climate change.

Connecting Sheffield: City Centre is crucial to delivering a high-quality city centre experience. 

For our city centre to thrive in an age of internet shopping, we need to make it a great place to live as well as visit. 

We need to make our city centre more pleasant, and attractive for residents and visitors alike. Building a bigger residential population is important to sustain a vibrant retail and leisure offer, which then benefits everyone. 

We will transform the city centre, bringing the Outdoor City into the city by creating green public spaces, and making key streets more attractive. 

We'll echo the landscaping and paving which we've completed along West Bar and at Castlegate. 

Creating a more attractive environment is crucial to attracting new employers to the city, increasing inward investment in the city centre to create new jobs and opportunities for people in Sheffield. 

By creating new segregated cycle routes, we will deliver easy, safe access by bicycle right into the heart of the city centre, making cycling a viable option for people, particularly those living close to the city   centre. 

Once in the city centre, we will make it easier for people to get around on foot and by bicycle by creating new pedestrianised routes and a better environment for walking and developing a series of connected cycling routes with ample space to travel safely, away from motorised vehicles. 

Traffic volumes will be reduced in the civic heart of the city to make our key spaces more safe and pleasant, however access will be maintained to key car parks. Bus journeys will be quicker, and routes will be more direct, with better bus stops and waiting areas. Bus routes will be prioritised with the introduction of three new bus gates. 

The focus on more high-quality spaces and greener streets, with additional planting, greenery and improved landscaping, creates the conditions for people to relax, enjoy themselves and spend time, whilst also making the city centre a more vibrant and attractive as a place to visit. 

Creating a more attractive environment is crucial to increasing inward investment in the city centre, which attracts new jobs. If we can maximise the number of people who walk or cycle around the city and city centre, we can also play a part in addressing the impact of transport on the climate and reducing pollution.

Sheffield City Centre is changing. More people are living and working in the city centre, and this means that the city’s transport infrastructure and public spaces need to be developed to meet our needs. 

Cities that have a strong city centre, with an attractive environment, large residential population and high numbers of businesses, are best placed to succeed and there are already a number of significant schemes underway across the city centre. 

Projects like Heart of the City and the work on The Moor, around the Town Hall and Peace Gardens, at Fitzalan Square and by our two universities, are helping to strengthen the city’s offer. 

We're attracting independent shops, office spaces, homes for permanent residents, hotels and high-quality public spaces, as well as leisure and hospitality outlets. 

The improvements being progressed as part of Connecting Sheffield: City Centre will seamlessly link with these plans and further contribute towards creating a thriving centre. 

Enabling more people to walk, wheel or cycle for shorter trips, while improving access by public transport, is crucial to help us improve air quality further at the same time as growing the city centre economy to create new jobs and vibrancy. 

The green streets and spaces that will be created through pedestrianising roads, creating wider pavements and adding more planting and benches will provide a better environment for people to relax, rest and spend time in the city centre. 

These measures will allow us to create an improved environment for increasing numbers of people to live and work in the city centre, helping to minimise the need for new housing out of town in the green belt.

The changes being progressed as part of Connecting Sheffield: City Centre provide a benchmark for the future of travel across all of Sheffield.