On Tuesday the 12th January the decision to refuse planning permission for housing on Owlthorpe Fields is being appealed by Avant – the housing developer at a Planning Inquiry to be held over the next six days.
Sheffield City Council are defending their position – they accept the principle of development but say that the current proposal is not good enough. Owlthorpe Fields Action Group are arguing primarily that the site should not be developed and instead should be left for nature conservation. Our own Dr Nicola Rivers is acting as their Expert Ecology Witness and will be saying that the site meets the Sheffield Local Wildlife Site criteria and therefore should not be developed.
If the threat of development was removed, then the site could contribute to the recovery of nature in Sheffield, especially contributing to the loss of biodiverse grasslands that Sheffield has suffered over recent decades as shown by our Sheffield State of Nature report.
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