100 signatures reached
To: Sheffield City Council
STOP planned new dual carriageway through Sheffield South Street Park.
In response to Sheffield Midland Station and Sheaf Valley Development Framework
Sheffield City Council should:
a) Abandon the concept of a new dual carriageway in South Street Park.
b) Develop a more ambitious greening and bridging of the mainline railway.
c) The Framework should be a catalyst for reducing road capacity by using new technologies and adapting what we already have.
d) Maximise sustainable economic regeneration by using existing sites or under-utilised buildings.
e) Invest in smart approaches by using new technologies and plan for the evolution of emerging innovations.
f) Invest in enhanced management to resource the maintenance and management of green spaces and parks of Sheffield.
g) Ensure compliance with SCC’s policies on Transport, Green Spaces and Air Quality.
h) Articulate the Framework as an ambitious vision for a net carbon zero city centre, aligning with the Outdoor City brand..
i) Engage with a people-powered shift in practical and meaningful engagement and not top-down ‘consultation’.
Why is this important?
We are concerned that for Sheffield City Centre, this Development Framework in its current form would increase air pollution and carbon emissions and would diminish a vital city centre green space. Sheaf Valley Park has been widely commended as an innovative and essential part of our city centre infrastructure. The Development Framework’s proposal to drive a dual carriageway through this park is deeply damaging, retrogressive and contradictory to the Council’s own transport, carbon and air quality targets. How can building a new dual carriageway ( swapping the existing dual carriageway with the existing tram line ) in the centre of the city reduce carbon and improve air quality when most independent research clearly states that new roads increase traffic and carbon emissions?
It will not contribute to improving air quality and in fact will make air quality worse for Sheffield City as well as residents of Park Hill and the wider neighbourhood. New roads increase carbon emissions: It will not contribute to lowering carbon emissions and will have a substantially negative impact on total net carbon emissions for the project.
Of equal concern is the apparent lack of strategic linkage to a clear vision for Sheffield City Region and Sheffield City Centre. The Development Framework is predicated on a series of engineering and land-based asset assumptions. It does not respond to a long-term net carbon zero future for Sheffield nor does it comply with or respond to the City Council’s own multiple strategic and policy commitments. There is so much more which requires an approach that goes beyond specific sites, traffic circulation and engineering design.
The whole document appears to be lodged in a 20th century car dominated policy framework, driven by trying to address historic road-based development objectives, without any balanced evaluation of the viability, practicality or value of these assumptions. It is a deeply retrogressive and old-fashioned perspective on city development.
The regeneration of the Midland Station ought to be a beacon and demonstrator for Sheffield City Region, pioneering less car traffic on roads; more active transport infrastructure; more greening and a brave and ambitious commitment to integrated, zero carbon transport systems.
Instead it feels like a throwback to the 1960s where ring-roads of polluting traffic encircled our cities and personal mobility trumped mass transit systems and where there was scant regard for the impact of fossil fuels and their impact on our natural environment.
We welcome the principle of the grey to green conversion of multiple roads as part of the wider strategy. This should be the opportunity for our city of Sheffield to grasp taking a new direction rather than a process of retrogressive transport planning.
