The debate over Sheffield’s Green Belt has drawn to a close. Or has it?

Good afternoon readers — and welcome to this week’s Monday briefing.

As the final hearing on plans to build on the green belt drew to a close last Friday, you could almost hear the sigh of relief from councillors and officers. After a mammoth effort, surely now it was finally over?

But it’s not that simple. Even with the added sites, the council still isn’t going to hit its new housing target for the next five years, plus there are “big question marks” over a key site in Grenoside. The government’s Planning Inspector now faces a difficult choice: let Sheffield pass a plan that doesn’t really meet the technical requirements, or throw it out once more. But perhaps there’s a third way — looking into other bits of green belt that might be lurking around.

That’s today’s big story.

As well as that, we have news of a reprieve for the council’s committee system, a talk about Picasso's visit to Sheffield, and have you got £500,000 to spare to save one of the city’s heritage icons?

Also: we’ve been a bit quiet on the Andrew Milne front in recent days, but please don’t think that’s because nothing has been happening. In fact, there have been a number of big developments in recent days that we’re keen to update you on. But we’re going to do a bumper edition on Wednesday with all the news, so keep a keen eye on your inbox on Wednesday morning.

In case you missed it

On Wednesday, Victoria took another look at a story published by The Star earlier this year about a prowler terrorising Ecclesall Road. In the piece, she questioned whether social media and the desire to “raise awareness” has earned the prowler an outsized reputation he doesn’t deserve.

Later in the week, Dan traipsed around the rural surroundings of the Rother Valley, where, if plans are approved, the biggest solar farm in the UK will be built, covering 3,500 acres and producing power for 250,000 homes. However, many locals in the villages of Harthill and Kiveton Park are unhappy with the plans, arguing they will destroy the countryside and won’t directly benefit their community. The piece sparked a lively debate in the comments section.

And over the weekend, Mollie met Sheffield’s longstanding Yemeni community, to understand why thousands of people from the sun-drenched villages of Aden and Yafa’a chose to stay in the Steel City after the mass industrial layoffs that forced many Yemeni steelworkers into redundancy. “Excellent article,” wrote Tribune reader Jim Coleman. “Especially important at this time when immigrants and the value they bring to the UK economically and culturally is being challenged.” Thanks for all your lovely comments on the piece.

The big picture: Old and new 🌆

We love this photo of Sheffield old and new by top Instagram snapper Anita Kućma. The newly-refurbished Old Queens Head is the oldest surviving domestic building in the city.

The big story: The debate over Sheffield’s Green Belt is finally over. Or is it?

Top line: Last Friday, the council’s lengthy consultation process on which parts of the green belt it should allow developers to build on came to an end. The decision to chip away at any of the city’s protected green space has been hugely controversial but the council has long insisted that it has no other choice if it wants to meet its government-mandated target for new homes. However, if the idea was to put this issue to bed, it’s fallen far short — and whether the plan will meet the government’s approval remains an open question.

Do the numbers add up? Sheffield’s draft Local Plan aims to set out where in the city developers will be allowed to build from now until 2039. However, according to the government, any Local Plan worth the paper it's written on must prove it sets out enough available land to meet the area’s housing target for the next five years. 

The initial draft the council produced, before it started chipping away at the green belt, failed to clear this hurdle; if followed to the letter, it only set out sites for the first 4.3 years. After adding on the green belt sites, things looked slightly better, but not that much. This second draft only showed Sheffield could meet its target for 4.41 years (link here), as many of the green belt sites would need more than five years to get off the ground.

Step-by-step: Two weeks ago, the council proposed another way of looking at things — they could underdeliver during the first five years of the plan, but then overdeliver in the following five. Describing this as a “stepped housing trajectory”, it would essentially short-cut the usual requirement for the sake of getting the plan actually done.

That seems to be in line with the government’s thinking. In a letter from Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook to the Planning Inspectorate, he wrote that he welcomed “recent pragmatic decisions to proceed toward adoption, in instances where a five-year housing land supply cannot be evidenced at the point of adoption but where the plan significantly boosts supply and still meets housing needs over the plan period”. 

Wheel of fortune: But for Sheffield to clear this slightly lower bar, the council needs to get all the green belt sites it has added to the Local Plan approved — an outcome that is far from guaranteed. 

One of the most important sites for hitting the council’s housing target is “The Wheel”, a 30 hectare site in Grenoside and Ecclesfield, where it reckons there is room for new 609 homes. The site is owned by the council, and currently let out to tenant farmers Mr and Mrs Riddle, who have been working the land for over four decades. 

But the farmers aren’t willing to relinquish their land quietly. At the final session of the council’s consultation on Friday, a lawyer representing the Chapeltown, Ecclesfield and Grenoside Community Action Group revealed that they had taken specialist agricultural legal advice, which had “unequivocally confirmed” that the council’s belief that they could be evicted with three months’ notice was incorrect. “Any attempt to remove them would require a long and complex legal process with multiple avenues of appeal, each of which would take years, well beyond the local plan period,” he added. "There are still big question marks over the availability of that site,” a senior figure in the city’s planning community told The Tribune.

If that site has to drop out of the plan, it would leave the council with a huge gap in its sums.

Have a rummage down the back of the sofa: The Planning Inspector, Katie Childs, has taken the unusual step of asking the council to pull together a detailed overview of other green belt sites it previously rejected over the summer, just in case. The council has pulled together a list, including Oakes Park in Norton and Ryecroft Farm in Dore.

While the council stresses that “none of the sites listed… are proposed for allocation”, the fact that the Inspector has asked to see them suggests she might be wondering if any of them could be put forward if other sites prove impossible. So far, however, none of these sites have yet been earmarked for anything.

What happens now? “The inspector has a really difficult decision”, a planning source told The Tribune. She could decide that the plan doesn’t hit the needed targets, the added green belt sites are risky and unlikely to make up the gap, and thus throw the whole thing out. That would leave Sheffield still using its last plan from 2009, and years’ more work needed to pull a new plan together.

Or, she could take the hint from the housing minister and push it through anyway, despite the risk that the city won’t get the housing it needs.

And finally, she could try to find another way through by choosing some previously rejected green belt sites and trying to get them incorporated into the plan. While some of these sites were rejected due to “fundamental constraints”, others weren’t considered because they were submitted too late. The council’s assessment of some of them is damning, but others (such as a site just south of Fulwood Road in Fulwood) get a more positive write-up. But this would all add yet more time to the process, as another round of consultation would be needed on any extra green belt sites.

Gruelling encounters: If there is a reopening of the consultation, then spare a thought for those working on all of this. The Tribune understands that officers in the planning department have found the last few months incredibly intense due to the volume of work and strength of public feeling around the green belt.

Bottom line: Has anywhere else in the country gone through as tortured a local plan process as Sheffield? If so, we’d love to see it. The council hoped that by finally grasping the nettle and admitting the need to build on green belt, they might have found a way through. But with one of its biggest green belt sites looking iffy, threats of legal action in the air and the Inspector asking to look at other green belt sites, we’re going to be in local plan limbo for some time yet.

Your Tribune briefing 🗞️

Sheffield derby ⚽ Over the weekend, there was another disappointment for the city’s infamously embattled club, after the Owls lost 3-0 in the Sheffield derby. Blades manager Chris Wilder was keen to be a gracious winner, insisting it was a “really competitive” match. “I’m not going to be greedy. It’s not a time to unbelievably shout about our performance,” he said. “It’s no wind-up, it’s no spin regarding the situation the opposition players and the management have been in.” The Owls last bested their local rivals in February 2012 and are anxiously waiting to find out who will take over from previous owner Dejphon Chansiri, with administrators hopeful they will have a buyer lined up by 5th December.

Committee system safe 🗳️ Sheffield council will be allowed to keep its more egalitarian committee system — at least for now. In a referendum four years ago, 65% of local voters backed plans to share power more equally among the city’s 84 councillors and three main political parties, rather than concentrating it in a cabinet picked by the council leader. The vote, triggered by the It’s Our City! campaign, was largely a response to the street tree scandal and the perception that the cabinet system had allowed a “bunker mentality” to take root. Earlier this year, the Labour government announced plans to scrap committee systems, arguing they are “unclear, duplicative, and wasteful,” but last week local government minister Steve Reed partially backtracked, suggesting councils that have adopted the committee system will be able to keep it for up to ten years. 

Support for struggling mothers 👶 A local charity has created a new project to house and support mothers who have lost custody of their children or are in danger of having them taken into care. Growth, run by Target Housing, is now providing a home, mental health support and a case worker for a dozen mothers who have been victims of domestic abuse, after receiving 60 referrals for the new scheme. Amy (not her real name) helped Target Housing to design the pilot using her own lived experience, which included losing custody of her newborn baby during the pandemic and only being able to see the child via videocalls. Since moving to South Yorkshire, she was able to turn her life around — including by taking parenting classes in Sheffield — and is now raising her third child herself. 

Charity trek ⛰️ Do you want to help a Sheffield charity and pick up a unique Christmas present? If so, there are still a few days left to bid on an auction in aid of Roundabout youth homelessness charity. The auction has been organised by Sheffield entrepreneur James O’Hara, who, along with some friends, is going to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in February 2026. Items available include Arctic Monkeys albums and posters signed by the band themselves, Pete McKee and Conor Rogers prints, signed football shirts and a meal for four at top Nether Edge restaurant Bench, plus many more. Every penny you spend will go directly to Roundabout, a charity which provides vital shelter and support to more than 380 young people in Sheffield every day. The auction ends on Saturday. Happy bidding!

The weekly Whitworth ✍️

Cartoonist James Whitworth with his take on the news that the biggest solar farm in the UK could soon be built in rural South Yorkshire.

Property of the week 🏡

Looking for a set for your next horror film? Then look no further, as the beautiful-on-the-outside-completely-decrepit-on-the-inside Old Town Hall is on the market, and auction day is on Wednesday (guide price: £500,000). You’ll be netting yourself an incredible piece of Sheffield’s heritage — and a hefty bill for repairs. We wish we could say it’s had one careful owner, but we’re not sure we can…

Things to do 📆

Theatre 🎭 Starting on Tuesday at the Lyceum, spend an evening in England’s deadliest county as Midsomer Murders comes to the stage. When spinster Emily Simpson is found dead in the picturesque village of Badger’s Drift, her friend Lucy Bellringer refuses to accept it was an accident. The classic whodunnit features eccentric villagers, shocking twists and an unforgettable reveal. Tickets are priced £15-£50 and the show runs until Saturday.

Talk 💬 On Wednesday, join artist and writer Anthony Padgett at Western Bank Library to hear about Pablo Picasso’s visit to Sheffield for the World Peace Congress in 1950. Padgett, who is the artist behind the Boy with Dove statue that was unveiled in Weston Park earlier this year, will delve into the history of the visit, covering the Spanish Civil War, Picasso's painting Guernica, and his peace activism. The 45-minute talk is free and starts at 1pm.

Music 🎸 Formed in 1992 from the ashes of The La’s and Shack, Cast were a big part of 90s Britpop scene, scoring ten top 10 hits with songs like Sandstorm and Walkaway. After reforming in 2012, they have since gone on to release new music, and have been going down a storm on their recent support slots on Oasis’s reunion tour. They play the Foundry (Sheffield Students’ Union) on Thursday. Tickets are priced £35 and doors open at 7.30pm.

If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up to get quality local journalism in your inbox.