Draft Local Plan

We are working on a new Local Plan (The Sheffield Plan) which will guide the future of the city by setting out how and where development will take place up to 2039.

We submitted a Draft Plan to Central Government in October 2023 and a series of public hearings where Sheffield residents and businesses were able to have an input took place between May and November 2024.  Two months ago, Government Inspectors delivered their positive initial findings into Sheffield City Council’s ambitious Local Plan. 

The letter also contained recommendations, including the need to provide more houses to ensure there is sufficient choice for the future and to maximise the number of affordable homes we can deliver. 

Inspectors concluded that 38,012 additional homes are needed over the 17- year Plan period to meet the needs of a growing city – more than set out in the Draft Local Plan. 

As a result, the Council was tasked with identifying land for an additional 3,529 homes.  The Inspectors also asked the Council to find an additional 53 hectares of land for employment uses, to fulfil the Plan’s ambition to create tens of thousands of new jobs over the next 15 years and further into the future.

We have now proposed a short-list of sites that will meet this need.  The Council has always explored site options with a brownfield first policy; however, all of those options have been maximised already. As a result, sites within the green belt have been looked into. Further information on the sites can be found by reading the full report and the accompanying technical reports.

Elected members are due to take a formal view on the proposed additional sites l at Strategy and Resources Committee on Wednesday 30th April with the proposal due to be presented to Full Council on Wednesday 14 May.  If the proposals are agreed by Full Council, public consultation on the proposals is expected to start on 29th May 2025 and run for 6 weeks.  Following public consultation, any representations received during the formal consultation period will be passed to the Sheffield Plan Inspectors who will take them into account – they will not come back to the Council for a decision after the consultation.  The Inspectors will decide whether the sites are properly justified, are in accordance with national planning policies (the National Planning Policy Framework) and are deliverable.   Anyone seeking changes to the proposals will have a right to submit evidence and/or appear at the public hearings in the autumn – they are expected to commence in the w/c 29^th September. 

Details of previous consultation on the Sheffield Plan are given below.

We previously consulted on an Issues and Options document ("Sheffield Plan: Our City, Our Future - Issues and Options 2020" in September/October 2020).

The Sheffield Plan then progressed to the next formal stage known as Regulation 19 (Publication).  Consultation on this document took place during January and February 2023. The Regulation 19 Draft Sheffield Plan document was submitted to central government for examination in public. It is the version that we seek to adopt, subject to that examination, as the future framework for decision making on planning.

The Publication Draft Sheffield Plan is made up of the following documents:

• Part 1: Vision, Spatial Strategy, Sub-Area Policies and Site Allocations
• Part 2: Development Management Policies and Implementation
• Annex A: Site Allocations
• Annex B: Parking Guidelines
• Key Diagram
• Policies Map
• Glossary

All these documents plus supporting documents are available under the "Draft Sheffield Plan and "Supporting Documents" sections on the right hand side of this page.

If you have any queries regarding this consultation, you can contact us by email at: sheffieldplan@sheffield.gov.uk