Petrol stations closed and redeveloped as flats, aerial photography used to spot potential gardens that can be sold off so that flats can be built. Here's an offer you can't refuse mate. Public amenities sold off and replaced by flats.
Does this land grab that's going on here irritate others as much as me?
I've never seen so many "To Let" signs, so many "Quality Student Housing" signs stapled on to houses.
What is going on?

I agree with you on that. The developers are moving into The Walkley Club and have applied for planning permission to build 12 or more houses in the car park. Parking round here's bad enough without closing off 2/3rds of the club car park.

There's also a house behind us where the owner has applied for pp several times. The latest plan was to take a strip of garden ending in a point only wide enough for a gate and build a 2 storey house on it.

It's just greed that does it not a housing shortage.

I reckon your right about it being greed motivated because the rental market looks flooded to me. But still they come....urgently seeking land at almost any expense. Who needs a municipal toilet when you can have another flat built on the land it takes up?

greed definately. there was a programme on telly a while back about millionaires buying tropical islands and trying to boot the locals off or onto a corner of the windy northside. sick. i think the rich westerners got shot/speared in the end.

the moral of the story was that all these rich families got torn apart by the greed and were left unhappy and poor.

In today's Star

"Bloor - the developer which transformed the old Middlewood Hospital site into Wadsley Park Village with hundreds of new homes - was accused at the meeting of allowing historic a building to fall into disrepair and failing to stick to the original planning brief.
Coun Martin Davis said he had been left "cynical, bitter and distrusting of developers" because of the way Bloor had acted.
When Bloor submitted the original plans for the site in the late 1990s, it said the administration block was a pivotal feature and would be converted.
But Bloor now says the building is derelict and should be demolished and replaced with 38 apartments."

Didn't the council do this with some of the old buildings that we can now only read about? I'm thinking here of the old 'Halls' that were once family homes and dotted about the estates such as Firth Park. These were all left to rot and demolished to make way for new developments.

It's probably encouraged by Govt incentives in an effort to bring new investment/investors into the area.

Talking of town planning - is the Yorkshire Grey still coming down to make way for a multi-storey car park?

Is the plan to demolish the bus station going ahead so that office blocks can be built or is that the plan for the current Castle Market site now?

Does anyone know?

don't know about the market and yorkshire grey,but the bus station is being redeveloped as we speak

quite simply it's all in the name of regeneration and sustainability - the drive toward building on brownfield (previously developed) land to spare less sustainably located greenfield sites. The reference to garden plots also comes within the term of previously developed land as it's contained within a residential curtilage. I'm a town planner by the way

i'm a town planning student and although there may not be a housing shortage, there has been a shift in demand due to smaller households (divorces, young people leaving home sooner etc) and also, people's idea of good housing has meant an increased demand for better quality housing, therefore there is a need for new housing in some areas to suit these new demands.


as for the student housing, some estate agents don't deal with it, and some private landlords find it more suitable to advertise with signs on their properties. I guess there are a lot of students in some areas, therefore there is a lot of student housing there :)

A derelict, ugly old warehouse near me has just been pulled down and flats are being built there. I've got mixed feelings. For one thing, no one will miss the old building, and it's good to have more property in the area (for those of us who would like to one day buy a house). On the downside, there's going to be more traffic, more noise and more people in the area.

this (http://www.sheffieldtoday.net/ViewArticle.aspx?SectionID=58&ArticleID=750969)

surprised me. The powers that be are always telling us that Sheffield has a shortage of quality hotels for a city of it's size, hence the building of the new hotel overlooking the Peace Gardens. Who is kidding who here?

Demand is elastic and mobile. I am sure that the resident town planning student will explain more. :thumbsup:

Can I put it another way?

What is wrong with any of the following...?
• Redeveloping a public toilet that the council closed years ago?
• Building hotels for people to stay in?
• Pulling down derelict ugly warehouses
• Demolishing crummy 1930's pubs to build new facilities that are sorely needed?
• Redeveloping redundant petrol stations?
• Building new houses in infill plots?

Remember that developers do all of the above at NO COST to “Joe Public”. In fact they usually risk quite large sums of money in the hope that it pays off. All this to help make things better for ungrateful people. Sheesh!

Tell me what the alternative is?
• Retain derelict buildings and run down areas?
• Build in the Green Belt?
• Have people living and working in substandard conditions or on the street?

Or is it just NIMBYism or the green eyed monster?

Morning. I hope you will bear with me as I am a Sheffield Forum 'virgin' !!

It was the same article in Wednesday's Star, referred to by Tiffany, that prompted me to go on line and subsequently discover this site.

I live on the former Middlewood Hospital site and often walk the 100 yds or so up to the Administration Building which in the past was the grand focul point of the whole complex. Before I go any further, I can tell you that I am still relatively young (just left 39!) and my memories of Middlewood Hospital are going up there as a kid to 'explore' (the innocence of youth eh?) and when we used to own Wilsons on Middlewood Rd, my mother having to ring the hospital to ask them to come and collect one of the patients who would quite often wander in to the shop (they were almost always harmless).

Anyway, between my house and the Administration Building is some woodland, woodland that Bloor Homes have assured me is 'Common Ground' and protected. I hope that this is the case as at the moment it provides a beautiful backdrop where we live.

My brother and I had a walk up to the AB and managed to get in a side entrance. The feel of history is unbelievable....and, I must say, it was pretty damn spooky in there too! Now whilst it is at present vandilised and decrepid, Bloor MUST be made to renovate it as they originally promised when they were seeking planning permissionto build on the site in the late 90's.

I don't know if it's something to do with leaving my 30's but for the first time in my life I can begin to see why people chain themselves to trees to protest against developers!!......

Anyway, I hope I haven't gone on too much. I just wanted to get it off my chest.

ps....Bloor are the builders of my house and in fairness they have been very good all the way through. I also don't have problems with redevelopment per se.....I just feel that sometimes developers think they can do what they choose, irrespective of whether they ave got permission or not.
pps...If you haven't read the other discussion on Middlewood Hospital it is well worth a read of that too.

I went to Barnsley town last week and coudnt believe how much nice than sheffield its getting. Sheffield seems crammed with these modern plastic looking toy flats/appartments/penthouses what ever you want to call them they look crap. Why cant we just modernise our old biuldings and let the history live on its such a shame. What history will we have to show our children? Council houses thats about it they are the only things that havnt been replaced!!!

Just reading through the comments here & came across the Middlewood Hospital now housing estate.
I am wondering what you call Protected Land? I used to live on Stockarth Lane opposite the hospital & the land between Stockarth Lane & the hospital used to be called Crown Land, I always understood thatthis meant that it could not be built on.
Hence when I came home for a visit from Australia 3 years ago, shock horror what did I see on that Crown Land.....ya you got it houses being built. Is crown Land the same as Protected Land? If so don't count on it being protected. I also worked in reception at the hospital many years ago & note your comment about patients wandering down Middlewood Rd, the first call I ever took on the switchboard there was Beeley Wood forge asking me to get an abmulance to get down there quick as a fella had been seen on the railway lines in his pyjamas but was now on the railway line with no pyjamas & could we get someone there quickly. Shows just how modest we were in those days hey.

Originally posted by Tony
Can I put it another way?

What is wrong with any of the following...?
• Redeveloping a public toilet that the council closed years ago?
• Building hotels for people to stay in?
• Pulling down derelict ugly warehouses
• Demolishing crummy 1930's pubs to build new facilities that are sorely needed?
• Redeveloping redundant petrol stations?
• Building new houses in infill plots?

Remember that developers do all of the above at NO COST to “Joe Public”. In fact they usually risk quite large sums of money in the hope that it pays off. All this to help make things better for ungrateful people. Sheesh!

Tell me what the alternative is?
• Retain derelict buildings and run down areas?
• Build in the Green Belt?
• Have people living and working in substandard conditions or on the street?

Or is it just NIMBYism or the green eyed monster?


spot on - points like those i argue all the time in planning inquiries.

i'm often retained by developers to promote their interests

You want to keep your Green Belts - your countryside, your greenfield sites so regenerate more sustainable inner city and urban sites and you'd be surprised what heritage can be retained. - it's not necessarily 'greedy' developers that are at fault - people seem to think developers can build what they want where they want - that's NOT the case, there are planning laws, there's the Council that need to approve schemes and there's an arbitrational body used to determine the merits of any particular scheme in the public interest. In any case developers are often oblidged through legal agreements to provide for better infrastructure, community facilities, education and affordable (social) housing - in fact on most residetial schemes there is a legal requirement for develops to provide upto 30% of dwellings to be affordable

Originally posted by Bedhead
there are planning laws, there's the Council that need to approve schemes and there's an arbitrational body used to determine the merits of any particular scheme in the public interest. In any case developers are often oblidged through legal agreements to provide for better infrastructure, community facilities, education and affordable (social) housing - in fact on most residetial schemes there is a legal requirement for develops to provide upto 30% of dwellings to be affordable

Without all these bodies and laws though do you not think that developers, and land owners, would just build wherever they felt there was money to be made?

Don't you think that's a rather stupid and irrelevant comment to make Max?

How fast would you drive if there wasn't a speed limit?:loopy:

The redevlopment of the old middlewood hospital looks fantastic and if this is what the developers can do to an old victorian hospital than I say let them carry on take a look for yourself on google and type P J Livsey