Bowden Housesteads Planning Consent Committee

[duckweed]

There has been an application to build two fire stations on a piece of greenbelt land ie land adjacent to Bowden Housesteads Wood, Sheffield's oldest recorded woodland.

This would set a bad precedent as well as being injurious to the woodland. WIldlife Trust has already put in a protest.

There is a planning committee meeting on March 11th to decide on whether to give consent at Sheffield Town Hall 1.30-2pm. (arrive at 1.15 to find out which room)

Please come if possible and pass details on.

[lysander]

The Green Belt is no longer sacrosanct. Witness the application by the University to build on the Airport land which, until last June, was classed as Greenbelt ...but changed to development land by an accommodating City Council ( with Govt approval of course)

[duckweed]

Yes and before it was airport some of it was golf course so the golfers in turn took away part of High Hazels Park.

Bowden Housesteads is particularly sensitive piece of green belt being next to the woodland. There has already been several fights to keep our green spaces in Sheffield re Wincobank, Graves Park and General Cemetery. Those battles have been won for the moment but I am sure the challenges will return if we don't keep fighting people off Green belt land. Sheffield invented Green Belt. This shouldn't be a battle we have to fight.

[History dude]

There's a ton of vacant land just up the road from Bowden that nobody is bothered about, why don't they build them on that?

[duckweed]

They say this is the best area to get a quick response time. Response time being critical because they are closing down several local fire stations which they say are no longer fit for use. Whether this is true or simply a cost cutting exercise you will have to ask someone more knowledgeable about the fire service. They say they have looked at over 30 sites and only this one will do. The Wildlife Trust are challenging this. The one way they would definitely win against this incursion is if they could prove there are things there of special scientific interest but I don't know what the situation is re that. The Trust say the land is a nature reserve.

[History dude]

That sounds very convenient for the Fire Service to say they have looked at 30 other sites, especially when closing down a few stations. Perhaps some of the 30 sites would have cost more to build on then Bowden? I can't see how a Fire station on the Manor land would effect the response time any more than were it is planned. It's likely that the delay in getting there would be caused by traffic jams on the overloaded Parkway and Prince of Wales Road, so it will come out of it's shiny new fire station to sit in traffic jams on those roads instead.

I've seen it said that the name of Bowden actually was originally called Buggas Wood. Perhaps what the Fire Service should be told to do with their plan for this new station?

[duckweed]

Well if enough people object, hopefully they will find a place with less environmental impact. I am surprised they could even have found 30 places to look at, and if they did they could probably find another one which isn't on Green Belt.