Campaigners call for end to greenbelt plans

Campaigners have renewed calls for a council to reconsider its proposals to designate some greenbelt land as being suitable for homes and industrial use.

The protesters have called on Sheffield City Council to rethink plans to earmark 14 greenbelt sites for housing or industrial development as part of its draft Local Plan.

In February 2025, the government told the council to increase the number of homes in its draft plan by 3,500 and to add a further 131 acres (53 hectares) of employment land.

Speaking during a protest before a council meeting at City Hall, Jonathan Hobson, of the S12 Green Belt Action Group, said the group was continuing to "hold the council to account and get answers".

"So far, all the community inputs have been ignored on a council level and an inspectorate level, but we continue to push for evidence-based information as well," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The sites identified for homes and business are mainly in the S35 and S13 postcode areas, but also in S12, S10 and S17.

The Local Plan, when adopted, will outline where all types of development will be permitted in the city until 2039.

At the meeting of the council last week, campaigner Gillian Travis said "fundamental unresolved questions" remained over the Local Plan.

She asked council leader Fran Belbin: "What reassurance can she provide to residents that all reasonable brownfield and previously developed land opportunities have genuinely been exhausted before the permanent loss of Sheffield's greenbelt?"

Belbin responded that the council had been given extensive evidence about potential for development on brownfield sites in urban areas, including the proposals for more than 18,000 new homes in the central area.

"Not all brownfield sites pass these tests, and some development opportunities simply don't exist now but will come forward at some point in the future," she added.

Public consultation on the proposed modifications to the Local Plan ended in May.

If inspectors give the go-ahead, the plan will come into effect this autumn.

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