University project gets the green light

Councillors in Sheffield unanimously granted approval for Sheffield Hallam University’s scheme, which will be built on the university’s existing campus in Collegiate Crescent.

The £25m project will involve demolishing the current Heart of the Campus building, Yorkon building and Marshall hall of residence and replacing them with a new state-of-the-art teaching complex, complete with a 220-seat lecture theatre and other facilities, which it is hoped will open in 2014.

Mark Swales, director of estates and facilities at Sheffield Hallam University, told yesterday’s meeting that the scheme will involved replacing poor quality and redundant accommodation at the north end of the site.

One committee member, Coun Peter Price, said: “This is a great development and I wish them all the very best.”

Meanwhile unanimous approval was also given yesterday for Bellway Homes to build a new housing development on Sheffield Hallam University’s former Psalter Lane campus in Nether Edge.

Planning officers had recommended the plans for approval, saying that they considered the proposals for 40 houses as well as apartments to represent a “good quality scheme of traditional design”.

Neighbour Stephen Green spoke against the development at the meeting, saying that the proposed access road would ruin the privacy of his garden.

He said: “The impact the new access road would have on my family is unfair.”

However, members voted to give the planning application the go ahead.

A representative from Bellway Homes said work on the new housing estate would be starting “as soon as possible”.