Sheffield City Council says it needs to build on Green Belt because there aren't enough homes. But whose fault is that? Freedom of Information data, obtained after the Council accepted on internal review that it had breached section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by failing to provide the full information requested, tells a striking story.
(1996–2019)
(1995–2025)
Between 1996 and 2019, Sheffield City Council demolished 10,504 council homes and 886 garages - a total of 11,390 structures removed from the public housing stock. In the same period and beyond (1995–2025), just 339 new council homes were built. That is a replacement rate of roughly 3%.
The Council's own data shows a net loss of over ten thousand council homes - and it now proposes to address the resulting shortage by building 3,906 homes on Green Belt land, most of it farmland. The question writes itself: why is our Green Belt paying the price for decades of demolition without replacement?
How we got the data - and why the Council tried to withhold it
This information was obtained through FOI request 2324643. The Council's original response failed to provide the information requested. On internal review, the Council accepted that it had breached section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by failing to provide the full information requested.
"As we did not supply the full information requested we were in breach of s1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and therefore your complaint is upheld."
The Council also apologised for missing the statutory response deadline and for failing to act on the original request for an internal review. The missing information was only provided in an updated spreadsheet after the complaint was upheld.
This matters. The data the Council withheld is directly relevant to its own Local Plan. If the public is being asked to accept the loss of hundreds of hectares of Green Belt on the basis that Sheffield needs more housing, the least the Council can do is be honest about how it arrived at that position.
The scale of what was lost
The demolition programme was concentrated between the late 1990s and mid-2000s, when large estate regeneration schemes were carried out across Sheffield. Thousands of council homes were swept away. The promise, in most cases, was that new housing would follow.
It didn't. Over a thirty-year span, just 339 new council homes were built to replace 10,504 that were demolished. To put that in perspective:
The gap is huge. For every new council home built, thirty-one were knocked down. This is not a housing crisis that appeared from nowhere. It is the predictable consequence of sustained demolition without adequate replacement - presided over by the same authority now asking Sheffield's communities to surrender their open spaces.
The bigger picture: 20 years of housing delivery
The demolition figures become even more striking when set against Sheffield's overall housing delivery. Government data records the net additional dwellings added to Sheffield's housing stock each year - that is, new homes built minus homes lost to demolition and conversion. This is the official measure of whether a city's housing stock is growing or shrinking.
Over the last 20 years (2004/05 to 2023/24), Sheffield added a net total of 23,102 dwellings - an average of just 1,155 per year. In three of those years, the net figure was actually negative - meaning more homes were demolished than built.
over 20 years (2004–2024)
added per year
The council's demolition of 10,504 homes is baked into those net figures. Without it, Sheffield's housing stock would be substantially larger. To put the scale in context: the council demolitions wiped out the equivalent of more than nine full years of the city's net housing delivery. That is not a rounding error. It is a policy choice whose consequences are still being felt - and which the Council now proposes to address by building on Green Belt.
Net additional dwellings per year in Sheffield (last 20 years)
Red bars (left of zero) = housing stock shrank that year.
20-year average: 1,155 net dwellings per year
What "net additional dwellings" means
This is the Government's standard measure of housing supply. It counts all new homes built, minus any homes lost to demolition or change of use. A negative number means a city's housing stock shrank that year. Sheffield recorded negative years in 2004/05, 2011/12, and 2012/13 - periods when the council demolition programme was at its most active.
What this means for the Green Belt
Sheffield City Council's Local Plan proposes to release 232 hectares of Green Belt, of which 170.3 hectares is farmland. The justification is housing need. But when you set the Council's own demolition record alongside its Local Plan, the logic falls apart.
| Green Belt release | Gross area (ha) | Of which farmland (ha) |
|---|---|---|
| Housing (11 sites) | 162.4 | 139.2 |
| Employment (4 sites) | 69.6 | 31.1 |
| Total Green Belt release | 232.0 | 170.3 (73.4%) |
Source: Sheffield City Council Local Plan site allocations.
The numbers side by side
10,504 council homes demolished over two decades.
339 council homes built to replace them (a 3% replacement rate).
3,906 homes now proposed on Green Belt, requiring the destruction of 170 hectares of farmland.
The Council demolished over ten thousand homes and built back barely three hundred. And the proposed solution? Build on Green Belt.
National planning policy is clear: Green Belt land should only be released in exceptional circumstances, after other reasonable options have been fully examined. A council that systematically ran down its own housing stock and built back so little raises an obvious question about whether brownfield and regeneration alternatives were pursued with sufficient seriousness before Green Belt release was proposed.
Two postcodes, four fifths of the burden
The burden of the Council's plan is not shared across Sheffield. It is concentrated overwhelmingly in two postcodes: S13 (Handsworth) and S35 (Chapeltown, Ecclesfield, and Grenoside).
Between them, these two areas account for 3,092 of the 3,906 homes proposed on Green Belt - that is 79% of the city's entire Green Belt housing allocation. The remaining 814 homes are spread across five other sites in different parts of the city.
The farmland figures are even more stark. Of the 139.2 hectares of farmland earmarked for housing across Sheffield, 119.2 hectares - 86% - falls in S13 and S35.
The breakdown
S13 - Handsworth: Handsworth Hall Farm (SES29) and Bramley Common (SES30) together account for 1,697 homes on 69.8 hectares of farmland. When SES29's employment allocation is included, S13 loses 90 hectares of farmland - over half the city-wide total.
S35 - Chapeltown / Ecclesfield / Grenoside: Four sites (CH05, NES37, NES38, NES39) together account for 1,395 homes. Of these, CH05 and NES37 alone would destroy 49.4 hectares of farmland.
Put simply: the Council demolished over ten thousand homes across Sheffield, replaced barely any of them, and now proposes to make up the difference by building on farmland - with four fifths of the burden falling on just two communities.
The central question
How can this be described as a fair, city-wide plan when 79% of Green Belt housing and 86% of farmland loss is concentrated in S13 and S35? And how can the Green Belt release be described as "exceptional" when the Council's own actions - demolishing ten thousand homes and rebuilding 3% - materially worsened the shortage of publicly owned housing it now claims to be addressing?
A question of transparency
The Council did not volunteer this information. It had to be prised out through a Freedom of Information request - and even then, the Council initially withheld the data, missed its legal deadline, and only complied after an internal review upheld the complaint.
This demolition data is not obscure or irrelevant. It is central to the case the Council is making for Green Belt release. If Sheffield's councillors are being asked to vote on a plan that would destroy 232 hectares of Green Belt, they should know - and the public should know - that the authority making that case demolished over ten thousand homes and replaced just 3% of them.
What we are asking
This data changes the terms of the debate. The Council cannot credibly claim that building on Green Belt is the only option when it demolished over ten thousand council homes and barely replaced any of them. Before Green Belt land is released, Sheffield's councillors should be asking:
- Where did the demolished homes stand? Are those sites now developed, or are they sitting unused? If brownfield land created by the Council's own demolition programme remains available, it should be built on before a single hectare of Green Belt is touched.
- Why was the replacement rate so low? Ten thousand homes demolished and 339 built is not regeneration. It is managed decline. The Council owes the public an honest account of what happened and what alternatives exist now.
- Why was this data withheld? The Council accepted on internal review that it had breached section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by not providing this information when asked. That failure is itself a cause for concern, particularly when the data has such obvious relevance to the Local Plan examination.
Sheffield deserves a housing plan built on honesty, evidence, and fairness - not one that papers over decades of mismanagement by concreting over our Green Belt.
Make your voice heard
This plan will come before Sheffield's full council for a vote. Before it does, councillors need to hear from you - clearly, firmly, and in numbers they cannot ignore.