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Sheffield Plan: Proposed Additional Site Allocations May 2025
Sheffield City Council’s draft Local Plan (the draft ‘Sheffield Plan’) was submitted to Government for examination by appointed Planning Inspectors in October 2023. The draft Plan sets out the Council’s strategy for future growth and change through to 2039 and will help to deliver Sheffield City Council’s objectives for delivering a fairer city for everyone. The Plan consists of:
Part 1 – Vision, Spatial Strategy, Sub-Area Policies and Site Allocations
Part 2 – Development Management Policies and Implementation
Annex A – Site Allocations Schedule
Annex B – Parking Guidelines
The role of this focused consultation is to provide the opportunity for representations to be made on the ‘soundness’ and legal compliance of fourteen additional site allocations for inclusion in the Plan before they are submitted to the Inspectors for consideration through the Sheffield Plan Examination. See Item 5) below for more information.
3. Period for submission of representations
The period for representations will run for 6 weeks from 29 May until 11 July 2025.
4. Where to view the Sheffield Plan: Proposed Additional Site Allocations May 2025 document and supporting documents
You can view and download the Sheffield Plan: Proposed Additional Site Allocations May 2025 document and supporting documents on the council’s website -
Hard copies of the Sheffield Plan: Proposed Additional Site Allocations May 2025 document will also be available to view in the city’s libraries and Howden House from Thursday 29th May. Supporting documents can be viewed at our main office, Howden House, 1 Union Street, Sheffield S1 2SH.
5. Things to consider when making a representation
We are asking for people to consider two specific questions when making representations on the Sheffield Plan: Proposed Additional Site Allocations May 2025 document:
1) Is the plan legally compliant when including these proposed new allocations?
Does the plan comply with the relevant legislation and regulations in the way it has been prepared, and in its content?
2) Is the plan ‘sound’ when including these proposed new allocations?
Has the plan been ‘positively prepared?’ Is it robustly justified and evidence-led? Will it be effective in what it sets out to achieve? And is it consistent with regional and national planning policy?
If you would like to be heard at the independent examination in public, please tell us in your representation. Please double check that the contact details you include with your representation are correct so that the Programme Officer can contact you regarding this.
6. How to submit your representation
Online through our consultation hub webpage:
Please note: all comments will be made public and will be submitted to the Secretary of State. We will not consider confidential or anonymous responses. Your comments and name will be published but other personal information will remain confidential.
7. Notification of next stages
The next stages of the Plan are:-
the submission of the proposed additional site allocations for independent examination, in order to satisfy the Inspectors’ request for further work to be undertaken on housing and employment land supply,
If you wish to be contacted about any of these stages, please tell us in your representation when and how you would like to be contacted.
8. Contact for more information:
Please contact the Strategic Planning team using the contact details above.
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Introduction
Anyone wishing to object to the proposed allocation sites to the Green Belt should submit their comments and representations during the 6-week public consultation starting on Thursday 29th May 2025 until Friday 11th July 2025.
Where and how?
Responses can be submitted from Thursday 29th of May until Friday 11th of July via the following methods will be sent to the Inspectors for consideration:
- Using the Council’s online consultation portal (Have Your Say Sheffield)
- Submitting email representations to sheffieldplan@sheffield.gov.uk
- Submit written representations or letters to the Council
It is important to note that representations sent after the consultation period will be marked as late and may risk not being taken into account by the Inspectors.
What happens once my response is submitted?
All representations received during the 6-week consultation period will be passed to the Inspectors for them to consider – they would not come back to the Council for a decision at that point in the process. It would be for the Inspectors to decide whether to recommend allocation of the sites.
What are the next steps in the process after the consultation is finished?
Anyone seeking changes to the proposals and who has submitted a response during the consultation period will have a right to submit evidence and/or appear at the public hearings in the autumn which are expected to commence in the w/c 29th September. However, objectors will be contacted before then by the Examination Programme Officer to ask them if they wish to submit written evidence or appear in person at the hearings. A deadline will be set by the Inspectors for submitting written statements. The Inspectors will use the representations and written statements to set agendas for the Examination hearings.
How should I write my response?
The Inspectors will want to see evidence to justify any objections that are made – there need to be valid planning reasons for rejecting the proposals. Areas of potential challenge would therefore be in relation to things such as the environmental impact, traffic, infrastructure provision or economic viability.
Legal Compliance
You should consider the following before making a representation on legal compliance:
- The plan should be included in the Council’s Local Development Scheme (LDS) and the key stages set out in the LDS should have been followed. The LDS sets out the key stages in the Plan and should be on the LPA’s website and available at its main offices.
- The process of community involvement for the Plan should also be in general accordance with the Council’s Statement of Community Involvement, (SCI), which sets out the strategy for involving the community in the preparation and revision of the Plan.
- A Sustainability Appraisal should identify the process by which the Council will help to achieve relevant environmental, economic and social objectives.
- The Plan should comply with all other relevant requirements of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, and the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012, as amended (the Regulations).
Soundness
Comments submitted should also aim to include why a particular proposal or site is not considered ‘positively prepared’, ‘justified’, ‘effective’ or "consistent with national policy" (those found in the December 2023 National Planning Policy Framework - NPPF). Please see definitions and a brief explanation in the table below. The Inspectors will decide based on the above tests of Soundness on the proposals and allocated sites. It is important to keep comments to the point as much as possible.
Test of Soundness |
Brief Explanation |
Positively Prepared: the Local Plan is based on a strategy which seeks to meet objectively assessed development and infrastructure requirements |
This means that the Local Plan should be based on a strategy which seeks to meet objectively assessed development and infrastructure requirements, and consistent with achieving sustainable development.
The NPPF, together with the Marine Policy Statement (MPS) set out principles through which the Government expects sustainable development can be achieved.
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Justified: the most appropriate strategy when considered against the reasonable alternatives, based on proportionate evidence |
This means that the Local Plan should be based on a robust and credible evidence base involving:
- Research/fact finding: the choices made in the plan are backed up by facts.
- Evidence of participation of the local community and others having a stake in the area; and
The Local Plan should also provide the most appropriate strategy when considered against reasonable alternatives. These alternatives should be realistic and subject to sustainability appraisal. The Local Plan should show how the policies and proposals help to ensure that the social, environmental, economic and resource use objectives of sustainability will be achieved.
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Effective: The Local Plan is deliverable over its period based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic priorities |
This means the Local Plan should be deliverable, requiring evidence of:
- Sound infrastructure delivery planning;
- Having no regulatory or national planning barriers to delivery;
- Delivery partners who are signed up to it; and
- Coherence with the strategies of neighbouring authorities, including neighbouring marine planning authorities.
- The Local Plan should be flexible and able to be monitored.
The Local Plan should indicate who is to be responsible for making sure that the policies and proposals happen and when they will happen. The plan should be flexible to deal with changing circumstances, which may involve minor changes to respond to the outcome of the monitoring process or more significant changes to respond to problems such as lack of funding for major infrastructure proposals. Although it is important that policies are flexible, the Local Plan should make clear that major changes may require a formal review including public consultation. Any measures which the Council has included to make sure that targets are met should be clearly linked to an Annual Monitoring Report.
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Consistent with national policy
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This means that the Local Plan enables the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the policies in the NPPF.
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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 previously consulted on an Issues and Options document ("Sheffield Plan: Our City, Our Future - Issues and Options 2020" in September/October 2020).
We 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.
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.
Why do we need a Local Plan?
The plan, once adopted, will set out new standards for future development in Sheffield, such as higher environmental standards to reduce carbon emissions and better space standards for new homes. It will help the city deliver more affordable housing, support regeneration and new investment, preserve our heritage areas, and enable more coordinated delivery of infrastructure, including planning for future health and community services.
Any site proposed within the Local Plan will have to pass several ‘golden rules’ before any housing can be built on it. These rules include sites having affordable housing included in them, 30% in the South, Southwest and Northwest of the city and 10% in all other areas, and new infrastructure must be delivered at the same time as the new homes and employment developments. Sites will also need good access to green spaces with developers expected to demonstrate an increase of 10% in biodiversity.
Why parts of Sheffield’s Green Belt had to be considered
In 2024, Independent Government Inspectors held a series of public hearings looking into the detail of the Local Plan, which proposed continuing the Council’s Brownfield First policy, with the vast majority of all development on brownfield sites. It did not propose building on any greenfield Green Belt land.
As a result of the hearings, the Council received a letter in February 2025 from the Inspectors asking for additional land to be found for a further 3,539 homes, above the 34,680 proposed, and an increase in employment land.
The Inspectors accepted the Council’s rationale around the need to regenerate the urban areas and focus growth in the centre of Sheffield but also recognised that releasing some Green Belt land could help to meet a wider range of housing needs, including the need for affordable housing.
The Council has explored every option before considering the release of any Green Belt for development. However, it was determined that there are no more available brownfield sites left to allocate which means that in exceptional circumstances, a small number of green belt sites are being considered. The sites account for only 3.6% of the land currently allocated as green belt, which means that over 96% of the Green Belt will remain untouched and protected.
The public will now have a chance to have their say on the proposals.
Proposed Additional Site Allocations (9 MB) (pdf)
Updated Supporting Documents
