Wybourn

 

The Wybourn estate is less than a mile south east of the centre of Sheffield, on a steep north-east facing slope. Built as a Council estate in the 1930s, there is an over supply of 2-bedroom houses and a high demand for 3-bedroom houses. Compared to similar Council estates, Wybourn has particularly high numbers of children, and overcrowding is a problem.

 

In spring 2007, the majority of Council homes on Wybourn transferred to a Registered Social Landlord (RSL) called Parkway Housing, through a stock transfer. This brought funding of around £28 million that is being invested in Decent Homes work and improvements to the whole estate. A further £1 million of investment has been secured through the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) programme.

In 2005 LDA Designs were commissioned to a produce a ‘masterplan’ for the Arbourthorne, Wybourn and Manor Park areas. This project was funded by Transform South Yorkshire, and looked at ways of improving the area to make it a better place to live.

 

For Wybourn, they key recommendations were:

 

 

Information about current projects, which have come out of these recommendations, can be found below.

 

A new housing development of approximately 125 units of high-density housing is proposed for Wybourn House Road and Cricket Inn Crescent. These will provide a new 'face' to Wybourn in this gateway location, as well as taking advantage of the retail development on Cricket Inn Road and the Supertram route to the city centre.

 

There are 24 existing houses on the site, which will need to be demolished to make way for the new development. The rehousing process for affected residents has already begun, lead by the Sheffield Homes Stock Reduction Team. Every household has been visited to discuss their options, and are receiving continued support throughout the process. The rehousing process is going well, and we expect that all residents will have moved out by December 2008.  

 

 

A new £2million Sure Start Children’s Centre has being built at the heart of the estate next to Wybourn Community Primary School. The Centre opened in September 2008 and final works to the outside of the centre are nearly complete.

 

In order to create a continuous campus that is safe for children moving between the buildings, the  bottom of Benson Road has been closed to traffic. At the end of of October, work was completed on transforming Benson Road from a traditional through road in to a 'Home Zone'. This represents the first “retro-fit” ‘Homezone’ in Sheffield and includes speed calming measures and a pedestrianised area, creating a safe and attractive community space at the heart of the estate.

 

Further streetscape work has been undertaken along Manor Oaks Road to help create this vision of a new ‘village centre’ for Wybourn.

 

The scheme was designed by the award winning Sheffield Design and Project Team and works were carried out by Streetforce.

 

The Design and Project Team have worked on a number of similar successful streetscene projects across the city, including the improvements to Margetson Crescent in Parson Cross.

 

 

 

In summer 2007, a new corner shop and flats were built at the junction of Manor Oaks Road and Manor Oaks Place. This provides the area with modern housing and improved retail services.

 

Top of page 

 

It is planned that Parkway Housing start building 4 bungalows and 6 apartments for rent on the development site adjacent to the new Children’s Centre on Manor Oaks Road. This work is programmed to start this year, and requires the demolition of 2 properties in order to access the disused backlands site to the rear of the properties.

 

Planning Permission for this development was conditionally granted by the Council on 9th October 2008. If you would like to view the plans, please access the Sheffield City Council's Planning Applications Portal and enter the reference which is 08/03538/FUL.

 

All of the 6 planned conversions are now completed. The properties on Wybourn House Road have been extensively remodelled and renovated using funding from Transform South Yorkshire and Parkway Housing.

 

The houses have been increased from 3- to 4-bedrooms, providing much-needed larger family accommodation for the Wybourn estate.

 

 

 

If you need any information regarding the developments on Wybourn, please contact the South Sheffield Regeneration team on 0114 292 2307, or email us at ssrt@sheffield.gov.uk