Could the Battle of Troutbeck Road be Close to a Result?
Full statement from the Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust
Over three days in August 2026 the long-running saga of the missing riverside path at Jacobs Gate off Troutbeck Rd Millhouses came to a head in what all parties are hoping represents the conclusion of an eight year planning battle.
It started when private therapeutic centre STEPS constructed a new treatment and residential building on part of the old Jacobs Engineering factory site at Troutbeck Rd in Millhouses. Their building was supposed to be part of a larger medical and retirement village by Victoria Construction which had been approved in 2014. The permission included a requirement to
provide a riverside path which it was expected would connect to another section of the path just upstream built as part of the Tesco Superstore in 2007.
The benefits of this path are multiple. First it would form a significant extension to the emerging long distance off-road River Sheaf Trail
for active travel and the Council’s Sheaf Valley cycle route. It would allow access for river maintenance and citizen science and enjoyment of nature in line with council and national planning policy. But it would also
represent a particular benefit to the 70 plus occupants of Jacobs Gate sheltered housing many of whom were told it was part of the plans by sales staff
Unfortunately for the young STEPS startup the developer Victoria went bust leaving STEPS to provide roads and utilities which they had not expected. Strapped for cash they decided not to build their part of the riverside path....So far understandable.
By 2018 STEPS had opened and a new developer Gladman/Adlington had stepped in to acquire the rest of the site and develop it as a purely residential apartment block of sheltered accommodation for elderly people. They did provide a path of sorts but incorporated it into the garden of the scheme.
At this point the newly established Sheaf and Porter Trust noticed the missing path at STEPS and in 2019 asked the Council to enforce the condition on the now established business. STEPS and Gladman, who own part of the river bank, did nothing... until sometime during the Covid lockdown STEPS erected, without planning permission, an additional ‘garden room’ building which partly occupied the space needed for the path and later submitted an application for a further extension which would reduce the riverside space further.
However Planning Committee,supported by the Trust and Millhouses, Ecclesall and Carter Knowle Community Association (MECK) refused permission for further extensions until the riverside path was provided to an acceptable standard. This was appealed in 2025 and the Inspector supported the Council’s position on the basis of written statements from each party and objectors.
An enforcement notice was issued requiring provision of the path at a width of 3m, to allow use by walkers, wheelers and cyclists.
Even then STEPS, supported by Gladman, refused to comply and submitted a new appeal this time against the enforcement notice itself on completely new legal grounds seeking to have the whole condition ‘nullified’.
This was the subject of the recent appeal which took the form of a three-day Public Enquiry, complete with expensive barristers, solicitors and planning consultants, witnesses and cross examination.
This allowed those who attended to for the first time to hear directly from STEPS and Gladman what their motives are in pursuing this aggressive defiance of the planning system
What came out were a series of what the council’s barrister Jack Smyth called ‘unattractive arguments’. These began with some impressive legal acrobatics by their brief who claimed that the requirement for a riverside path was a complete surprise to the appellants and that in fact by an ingenious conjuring trick it turned out that it did not have planning permission anyway.
A director of Gladman Retirement Living, Jonathan Shepherd claimed that they were unaware of the 2014 planning condition when they acquired the site from Victoria, an extraordinary lack of due diligence from a leading property company.
He went on to state there was no evidence of demand or support for a riverside path from their residents, a statement he had to eat when apartment owner Kevin Hanson produced a letter on behalf of some 60 out of 65 flat owners supporting the path and then Councils position. As many don’t drive and find the steep Troutbeck Rd and busy Abbeydale Rd too
much of a challenge and would welcomed the chance of future access to the river by a convenient easy-going path to shopping, bus services and Millhouses Park.
He then went further by claiming that ‘no commercial developer in his right mind would allow public access on their land ’. Clearly the preferences of their elderly home owners were not part of that calculation The Trust pointed out that this is precisely what most developers are doing willingly from Deepcar to Meadowhall via Kelham Island.
They next turned to thinly veiled intimidation, Gladman declaring if the council enforced the path the elderly residents would be made to pay for any security measures such as additional fencing (actually part of their original approved plans) and CCTV ( actually already in place).
They then escalated their position to a new level of absurdity claiming that even if forced to construct any path they would simply lock it up, denying access to pretty much everyone, apparently including even their own residents and staff.
Finally at the last moment just before the enquiry they issued an offer to make a payment of £100,000 towards a riverside trail anywhere on the Sheaf so long as it was not their own site.
This is surely an unmistakable sign that they don’t really totally believe their own arguments.
The council’s brief called this a ‘back of a fag packet’ calculation based on 2007 prices and considerably less than the £500,000 they had previously claimed without evidence, to be the cost of providing the STEPS path.
We feel sure the Inspector will reject these arguments. If he does not we fear he risks creating a terrible new precedent for the already embattled planning system, already badly weakened by years of hostile interference by central government and loss of staff resources.
Were the unthinkable to happen not only would this be a body blow to hopes of extending public access and improvement to Sheffield’s most inaccessible and invisible river after which it is named, but could result in the Council having to pay costs, even further depleting their finances.
We all await the Inspectors report with a mix of hope and anxiety.
PLANNING INSPECTOR BACKS COMPLETION OF SHEAF TRAIL AT MILLHOUSES
Trust Chair Simon Ogden commented ‘ We welcome the Inspector’s clear decision and the Planning Committee’s courageous support. We believe that an attractive public trail following the river here will particularly benefit residents, clients and staff at the admirable STEPS Clinic and of the Jacobs Gate sheltered housing as well as the much wider community. River stewardship and environmental monitoring by our volunteers will also be enabled. We look forward to working with the two land owners to complete the work and final connections as soon as possible and if necessary will offer our volunteers to help to keep the new trail in good condition.’
The Planning Inspectorate has dismissed an appeal by the private therapy clinic STEPS and developer Gladman/Adlington against the decision of Sheffield’s Planning Committee in October 2024 to require construction of a riverside walking, wheeling and cycling route at a width suitable for all uses on their land along the River Sheaf.
This will hopefully bring to conclusion a six year campaign by the Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust, the Millhouses, Ecclesall and Carter Knowle Community Association and local councillors to secure compliance with planning conditions first set and agreed by the appellants in 2016.
Construction of the 120 metre trail beside the STEPS building will enable an attractive and traffic-free connection from Troutbeck Road to the riverside at Tesco’s Millhouses store, then to Millhouses Park and beyond including an adjoining section of trail at Jacobs Gate sheltered housing operated by Adlington completed some five years ago but never opened.
