BULLETIN – Published 30 Nov 2023

1. The usual WhatsOn for December [attached] courtesy of Banner Cross Neighbourhood Group.

ALSO – Whirlowbrook Park  – 2 December 2.00 -3.30pm – Guided Family Tree Walk as part of National Tree Week. [See attached]

2. Minutes of the Public Meeting held at Millhouses Methodist Church on Thurs 23 November. [Attached]

Please note that volunteers are still being sought for the Community SpeedWatch group – contact Peter Gilbert if you are interested. And for delivery of the Group’s new leaflets in areas West of Ecclesall Rd/Ecclesall Rd South – that is Bents Green, Parkhead and Upper Greystones – please contact me via email.

3. Police Crime Prevention Advice. We had an advice session at the Public Meeting – see the Minutes – but we have also been asked to share the following pieces of information from Police.UK. [See attached] We do have some electronic devices that make it look as if your TV is on, to deter burglars – anyone interested please email Paul May [our Chair]

4. Planning Matters
There are two Planning Applications live in our area at the moment. Both are controversial, and may well give rise to some divisions amongst residents.

A. Ecclesall Primary School. The School has submitted an application to build a quite large Multi-Use Games Area [MUGA] on its currently grass playing fields. [Reference NO 23/01882/FUL. https://planningapps.sheffield.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=RW6KWMNY0OB00]  See my Bulletin of 15 November and the attached Plan] 

Since then we discussed this application at the Public Meeting, with two representatives from the local Save Ecclesall Playing Fields group, and with a letter from the School Headteacher. After some discussion it was agreed to submit a Comment on the Planning Portal citing our concerns and reservations, and urging that the Application be withdrawn to allow for a rethink, or if the School was unwilling to do that, that the Planning Committee should refuse the application and send it back for more consultations and discussions to happen, and any omissions and discrepancies to be remedied.

At that point the Planning Committee was scheduled to hear the Application on Tues 5 Dec. [The full Comment is attached]

Since then we have been told by the Planning Officer that he has been informed that some fresh information and possibly an amendment to the application is expected from the School’s planning consultants, and that the Committee hearing is now postponed, probably until January next year. I will update on this when that further information is published.

B. The Gospel Church site. The Gospel Church site is off Carter Knowle Rd, just below the Montrose Rd shops and the Cherry Tree pub. It ceased to be a Meeting-house for the Plymouth Brethren in 2018 and has been empty, and getting increasingly derelict, ever since. It was bought in 2022 by PTA Developments [who developed the Beauchief housing development on the old Beauchief Hotel site on Abbeydale Rd South, and also the Baldwin’s Omega site on Psalter Lane] 

They have now submitted a Planning Application [Reference 23/03296/FUL  https://planningapps.sheffield.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=S2MWMBNYGR900]

The application is for 5 blocks of apartments [flats?] – 67 in all – along with parking etc. Some of the block are 5 storeys high, and might well tower over adjoining properties and the Carterknowle Park just below, although some of the site is set quite low, and may be less visible from the road. In the Sheffield Draft Local Plan [still to be approved by the Government Planning Inspectorate] the site would have approval for 14 Houses, considerably less than the proposed 67 flats, some of which would be 3 bedroom ones, with the rest having 2 bedrooms. The Local Plan, being still in Draft, would not be allowed to overrule the existing Sheffield Plan though, which is 14 years old, and has no specific numbers attached to any sites.

There are the usual concerns common to many such development applications, such as 
a) the impact on traffic on Carter Knowle Rd [which is relatively narrow and often busy, with a lot of parking on one side], and with no footpath on that side of Carter Knowle Rd;
b) the drainage implications [how do they deal with the waste from all those dwellings?]; and what will happen to the rainwater run-off once the whole site is paved over?
c) parking [is there enough parking space, or too much? In the Draft Local Plan it is proposed to limit parking spaces on such large developments]; much of the parking is apparently to be hidden under the blocks;
AND
d) does the development provide any “affordable housing ” [none is proposed in this application, despite the alarming shortage of such housing in Sheffield; and the developer would usually  be expected to contribute a sizeable sum of money to compensate for this]. There is no mention of this in the application, and developers have found all sorts of clever ways to get around this requirement over the last few years, [aided by Government relaxation of the planning rules].

There is also one specific concern that affects the residents on Grange Lane above the site: they have a private cess-pit as they have no connection to the mains sewer below Carter Knowle Rd. This pit drains into a soakaway that flows into the culverted stream that runs beneath the site, and under the Mercia School site, to eventually run down into the River Sheaf. The cess-pit is on the site of the development, so could potentially be damaged by the construction work if the development is given permission to go ahead.

There is no Environmental Assessment of the site in the Application, as would normally be expected; and the site, especially the lowest section known as the Dell, is known to be frequented by badgers and foxes. Several trees were felled by the Brethren in 2017-18 in preparation for a sale, until the Council Ecology Unit obtained Tree Protection Orders for the rest. These may well be roosting sites for bats. The application would normally be expected to include protection for any wildlife ‘protected species’ and to contribute to increasing bio-diversity as part of the planning requirements.

Some local residents are talking about setting up a Petition against what they see as over-development. The Planning Committee is expected to consider the Application sometime in February. I shall update on this application as more information comes in.

Welcoming Spaces project – St Peter’s & St Oswald’s Church.

I am pleased to be able to report that this project will continue, as the Group has been successful in its bid to the SW Local Area Committee who have given us £610 towards it: coupled with the £680 we have received from neighbouring Wards Nether Edge & Sharrow and Beauchief & Greenhill we have nearly £1300 which should keep the project going well into March.
Please do share news of this project with any neighbours you think may be able to benefit from it. An A5 advert for the sessions [2-up] is attached – it will print on an A4 sheet set to Landscape mode.

Feedback
As usual feedback about anything in the Bulletin is welcome – I will try to answer questions or publish comments where feasible. Particularly of interest this time would be the opportunities for funding and Group activities detailed in the attached Public Meeting Minutes Item 5c. And also the planning applications described above.