Plans for Meadowhall site set for approval

New plans to redevelop a site adjacent to Meadowhall to create more than one million sq ft of new employment space are recommended for approval when they go before councillors next week (12 March 2019).British Land submitted an outline planning application to Sheffield City Council in October for the River Don District site, located to the south of the shopping centre.The site was previously used for steel works, rivet and brass works, brick and tile works and railway land but has since been cleared ready for redevelopment.Planning permission is sought to develop 1.08 million sq ft of flexible commercial floorspace, of which a maximum of 430,000 sq ft would be offices.Provision for a car showroom, a hotel and almost 50,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space is also included in the plans, as well as car parking, servicing, landscaping, highways and engineering works.The applicant has estimated that the development could support the creation of up to 4,810 jobs when complete, with an increase in gross value added (GVA) of about £218m per annum.The council’s planning and highways committee will consider the application on Tuesday. An officer’s report prepared for the meeting recommends that consent is granted, subject to the signing of a legal agreement.British Land has been supported in its application by BDP, Quod, Peter Brett Associates and Arcadis.The site and an adjoining plot of land already has planning permission, granted by the council in 2009, for a development featuring between 800 to 1,300 residential units, up to 1.3 million sq ft of office space, hotel, retail and leisure facilities.Following the approval for the expansion of Meadowhall in 2016, British Land entered into a unilateral undertaking limiting the scale of the development to 645,000 sq ft office space and 800 residential units.The original consent remains in place but is set to expire if work has not started by May 2019.