The future of Stanley Fields

Plans have come up again for new housing to be built on the greenfield site known as Stanley Fields, but not including ‘affordable’ homes.

The grassy site – between Pitsmoor Road and the disused Stanley Tools factory on Rutland Road – was once covered with hundreds of terraced and back-to-back homes, but these were demolished in the 1950s and 60s.

On the other side of Pitsmoor Road the Woodside estate was built in the 1960s, with a careful decision to leave clear open space between residential and industrial areas.

The new approach is to allocate the greenfield area for housing. Housing developers will be invited to express interest in building on the end closest to the city centre. The area next to Wood Fold, where people often play football, is to be kept as open space.

The steep slope between Pitsmoor Road and Pye Bank Road,where many Burngreave residents used to live in the former ‘toast rack’ blocks, is also to be kept as open space, probably because it is not profitable to build on such a steep slope.

However, the flat areas in front of the old Pye Bank School (Andover Drive and Gray Street) are set aside for housing, as are sites further down Fox Street.

When the council cleared the Woodside estate in 2004 and demolished hundreds of family homes, it hoped a private property developer would be attracted to such a large prime site to build “affordable and aspirational housing”. The scheme, known as the Burngreave Masterplan, was described as a “dynamic development framework that will guide investment over the next decade”.

It didn't happen of course. The council could not find property developers to meet the terms required. The question is whether any developer will come forward now that affordable housing is no longer required. The affordable homes that Burngreave needs are not attractive to developers, so it remains to be seen whether the new plans will come into effect.