The Jacobs factory off Troutbeck Road
Today I was talking to residents of Troutbeck Road and those nearby on Abbeydale Road. Although they raised a number of issues the main one was the planning application for the old Jacobs site.
The current application is for the “erection of retirement village, including nursing care home, EMI/dementia care home, sheltered accommodation for the over 55’s, doctors surgery or hospital for the terminally ill.” This is such a wide range of different facilities that it’s hardly surprising that there is some confusion on the part of local residents as to exactly what will happen. However, at the moment this is an outline application rather than a detailed application, to get the principle agreed that it could be any one of these things on the site.
Despite the vagueness of the application there does however seem to be general support for doing something with what is currently a derelict site that brings down an otherwise nice area. The latest proposals are also far more popular than a previous plan to build 201 apartments on the site. There is however still concern over traffic and parking.
As with most areas of terraced housing, parking in the area is not easy. This is not only an issue for the residents of Troutbeck Road, but also those residents of Abbeydale Road who have to park on Troutbeck Road because of the peak-time parking restrictions outside their own homes. A lot of residents are concerned that this application will lead to more restrictions on parking on Troutbeck Road, such as putting double-yellow lines down one side. This would mean there were completely insufficient parking spaces for the number of cars that need to park on the road, and even more so if all the offices at the bottom of the road are occupied.
The previous application for 201 flats was withdrawn but that time the highways issues were again a major issue. This time around the building of a residential care home or similar is likely to cause fewer parking problems, but if restrictions are placed on Troutbeck Road there could still be big problems.
I have written to Development Control in the council to emphasise the importance of the highways issues, (as well as to ask that the development results in the opening up of access to the River Sheaf), and to pass on the views of local residents, but it would also be a help if local residents also made their views known directly. Although the official deadline for comments has passed, there is still time to make your views heard before the meeting of the Planning Board. To comment, you should write to Stewart Greenslade at Development Services, Howden House, Union Street, Sheffield, S1 2SH.
You can find full details of the application on the city council’s website here.
