Rotherham Council are on the hunt to identify a development partner for a new 2,500-plus home community, their Chief Executive told the Sheffield Development Plans Conference. The Bassingthorpe Farm site, which is jointly owned by the council and the Fitzwilliam Wentworth estate, has been earmarked as a strategic housing allocation in Rotherham’s local plan, with Sharon Kemp adding that ‘a masterplan for the site had been drawn up and a viability assessment was nearly ready’.

Kemp said that the council was looking to secure a delivery partner this year and for a planning application to be submitted in 2020 with a view for development to start on site in 2021. In addition to the new homes, the council has identified 11 ha of employment land and a primary school at Bassingthorpe. The scheme is being supported with £30m worth of funding from the government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund to upgrade the A66. The scheme will help to deliver Rotherham’s local plan target of 14,371 homes between 2013 and 2028.

The authority is also set to unveil the development partner for its Forge Island regeneration project soon, which will be a ‘catalyse for growth’ in Rotherham town centre. The scheme sets out to create a new leisure destination featuring a ‘quality’ hotel, a cinema, around 250 riverside apartments, bars and restaurants which will all be connected to the rest of the town centre by a landmark bridge.

Mark Swales, Director of Estates and Facilities at Sheffield Hallam University, told the conference that the Don Valley Stadium made famous by Dame Jessica Ennis is set to be transformed into a cutting-edge centre for health sciences. He outlined his institution’s plans for the stadium’s regeneration with work set to begin later on the centrepieces of the Health Innovation Campus. The first projects to come forward are the Advanced Well-being Research Centre and the Orthopaedic Research and Rehabilitation Innovation Centre. The latter, which is being developed in association with the hospital trust, was recognised in the government’s life science sector strategy when it was published in November. Swales said that the aim was for 3,000 people to be working in the park within three to four years.

Swales also told delegates that the university is working with architects BDP on a new estate masterplan, which is due to be presented around the middle of March to its board of governors, chaired by former chief civil servant Lord Kerslake. He said that phase one of the £150m masterplan will deal with the university’s immediate space pressures by developing new capacity at the city centre campus.

In addition, the university is working up proposals for the site of the university’s former student’s union building, which is located next to Sheffield’s mainline railway station. He said Hallam has commissioned a feasibility study to determine how much development can be accommodated on the former Nelson Mandela House site, as well as seeking a development partner to bring it forward.

Edward Highfield, Director of City Growth at Sheffield City Council, said in his presentation that the next phase of the ongoing regeneration of the Park Hill estate is due to be on site ‘soon’.

Denzil Lawrence of Boeing Commercial Airplanes said that the aerospace giant was still looking for contractors to complete its new manufacturing facility at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) between Sheffield and Rotherham. He said that the new factory would make components for the company’s 737 model, which is assembled at Boeing’s main plant in Portland, Oregon.

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