Heart of the City Consultation

Heart of the City is transforming Sheffield city centre. Built for Sheffield by Sheffield, the scheme is creating places to live, work, shop, eat & drink, socialise, browse and relax. Alongside new and repurposed buildings, Heart of the City is creating vibrant streets, lanes and squares – attractive outdoor spaces created for everyone to enjoy. 

The next phase of Heart of the City raises the bar in this regard and will see the introduction of an iconic new city centre park in Sheffield of around 6,000 sq m.

The Council are extremely keen to hear you views and are inviting you to comment on the proposals prior to submitting a planning application. The situation with COVID-19 means that we are unfortunately unable to hold public drop-in sessions as part of this consultation. However, we understand the importance of providing the opportunity for genuine dialogue, and therefore, we are committed to providing this opportunity even if we are unable to meet face-to-face.

A summary of the plans are outlined below. For extra information, you can view a presentation of the plans by Zac Tudor (Principal Landscape Architect at Sheffield City Council) at the bottom of this page.

Location & context

The site identified for Pound’s Park sits on the western side of the Heart of the City masterplan, located between Rockingham Street, Wellington Street and Carver Street. The site is sometimes referred to as the former fire station site, or “Block G” of the Heart of the City masterplan. It is currently home to two surface car parks.

Back in 2018, this site was earmarked for a multi-storey car park, hotel and over 150,000 sq ft of office space as part of the refreshed Heart of the City masterplan. However, a change of priorities since 2018 has led the Council to update its plans for the site to create something entirely bespoke to Sheffield – a green park that closely aligns to the city’s evolving sustainable transport and environmental ambitions – alongside two new development plots.

The way this part of the scheme will be delivered has also been updated. The Council will lead the construction of Pound’s Park itself (with funding from Sheffield City Region) and then will invite interest later this year from private developers to take forward the development of the two new buildings.

Pound’s Park will be partly funded by the Transforming Cities Fund (Sheffield City Region) and the Government’s Getting Building Fund.

Why Pound’s Park?

The site earmarked for the new park was once home to the South Yorkshire Fire Service. Sheffield’s first Chief Fire Officer (1869-1895) was Superintendent John Charles Pound. Pound’s Park has therefore been suggested as a fitting name for this new park by local heritage organisations, in recognition of the key role that Superintendent Pound played in setting up Sheffield’s fire service.

A world class public space

Sheffield City Council’s in-house teams have already developed an acclaimed and distinctive city centre public realm in areas such as Devonshire Green, the Peace Gardens and Grey to Green. Guided by a series of key design principles that focus on the Pennine landscape, the quality and vibrancy of its streets, places and spaces make a critical contribution to the city and create a strong sense of character.

Pound’s Park, the next ambitious phase of Heart of the City, will seamlessly continue this high quality public realm, while also reinventing the expectations of a city park. A multitude of experiences will be created, including spaces for play, relaxation, and socialising – all within a heavily greened and attractive environment that helps promote physical and mental wellbeing.

A Interactive water play
B Physical imagination play
C Ground floor interface with office & ground floor uses
D Designed connection to other key Heart of the City public realm
E Outdoor café terrace
F New bus interchange
G Play & Trim Trail new urban orchard
H Toddlers play

Fun & welcoming

There is a major focus on creating a park that can be used and enjoyed by everyone, from city centre workers and residents, to young families and veteran shoppers. Providing families opportunities for play within the city centre gives a new meaning to a public space and is a rare experience within an urban environment such as this. The interactive equipment will be incorporated into Pound’s Park is fully inclusive and non-prescriptive, creating a space for physical and imaginative play and sensory exploration.

Water will also be a key element to this. Pound’s Park will invite its users to interact and play with the water features. This will relieve some of the pressure from the Peace Gardens, which can get extremely busy during the Summer. A key structural feature of the park will be a sizeable climbing boulder positioned at its centre, which will bring the Outdoor City ethos right into the heart of the city centre and continue to build a truly tangible sense of place for Sheffield.

Green & environmentally conscious

The use of imaginative planting and inventive soft landscaping has been pivotal to Sheffield’s regeneration of the city centre. Trees, planting and benches will remain a key feature of this new public realm, used extensively to provide colour and seasonal interest, increase biodiversity and help to achieve urban cooling. Planting will be an integral part of the area’s sustainable management of rainwater, particularly during extreme weather events. Each planting bed will be part of linked network of storm-water swales within the public space that receive runoff from the surrounding hard surfaces.

Numerous academic studies have shown the positive impacts of good quality public spaces in improving metal wellbeing and physical health of workers, residents and visitors to a city centre. This will be even more crucial as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. All of the spaces will incorporate seating, as well as ‘garden rooms’ in the Carver St square to provide opportunities for people to rest and relax, or to socialise in a safe environment.

Accessible & convenient  

The park will also provide a crucial attractive link between the planned new area of bus stops on Rockingham Street and the wider city centre. It will be a straight walk of around 200 paces from the bus stops through the new park to John Lewis, Pinstone Street and then Fargate beyond. Prominent streets at present, the investment in the park will transform this area into a high-quality and safe space, with well-lit open space and lots of activity into the evening.

In addition to improving public spaces, the Council are keen to ensure Sheffield sets a new benchmark in the quality of walking and cycling infrastructure – to encourage more sustainable and environmentally-conscious modes of transport.

Although not directly part of this planning application, a large new cycle hub is being proposed as part of the modernisation of Wellington Street car park at Telephone House. The finer details of the cycle hub are still being confirmed, however, it is anticipated that it will be able to accommodate up to 300 bikes and will be based in a central ground unit of around 3,000 sq ft. The cycle hub will be accessible from Wellington Street at the southern edge of Pound’s Park.

Supportive & integrated   

The park will act as the beating heart of the wider regeneration in the city centre and help drive footfall and vibrancy to the network of surrounding streets, spaces and buildings – specifically the bordering Kangaroo Works (residential scheme under construction), Elshaw House (approved office development) and Cambridge Street Collective (approved food hall and leisure destination).

The two new development plots that have been incorporated into the plans will create clearly defined and active edges to the park, but also allowing for spill out from the buildings’ ground floor units – perfectly suited to cafés and eateries.

A new home for William Mitchell’s frieze

The park will also provide an accessible new home for the William Mitchell frieze, which was removed from Burgess House a few months ago in preparation for the construction of the new Radisson Blu hotel on Pinstone Street. Its new position will give the new park a distinctive Sheffield character and provide a location for the frieze to be enjoyed and seen by significantly more people.