News: Rotherham Council objects to AMRC’s expansion in Sheffield

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Rotherham Council is objecting to a multimillion pound extension to the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in Sheffield because the application contains out of date information about buses.

A partner in the HVM Catapult (the government’s strategic initiative that aims to revitalise the manufacturing industry), the AMRC focuses on advanced machining and materials research for aerospace and other high-value manufacturing sectors. It is a partnership between industry and academia, which has become a model for research centres worldwide.

Having launched on the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) in Rotherham in 2003, the centre outgrew the site of the former Orgreave coking works and expanded over the Parkway onto the site of the former Sheffield airport, developing its own “Innovation District” with buildings such as Factory 2050, which opened in 2015.

The latest application for the Sheffield Business Park location is for the “Factory 2050 Mark III Building” – a 29,600 sq ft L-shaped structure to house a workshop that comes at the same time as the centre announced an £80m boost to composites research and development for aerostructure manufacturing in the UK that will see a new research facility built in South Yorkshire that has aerospace giant Boeing as its first major research partner.

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The AMRC application, supported by agents, DLP Planning, also includes a detailed travel plan and transport assessment but Rotherham Council planners have labelled it “fundamentally flawed.”

In its response to the application, Rotherham Council states: “The travel plan accompanying the application is fundamentally flawed in that it quotes a level of bus service provision that is many years out of date. The current level of public transport available is very restricted, both in terms of areas served and the frequency and times of operation.

“This suggests that the number of car trips to the site will exceed those stated in the original transport assessment. Given the sensitive nature of the local road network and the SRN [strategic road network] junction at M1 J33, the actions in the travel plan should be revisited to bring it up to date.

“As such Rotherham Council wishes to object to the application currently.”

One of the main bus services featured in the applicant’s documents is the A1 service that linked Sheffield Business Park, as well as the Waverley development in Rotherham, to Meadowhall.

Previously run by Powell’s before the bus operator closed last year, the A1 route was taken on by Cawthornes Travel before it was withdrawn completely in July 2023.

Having to make cuts to services and incentives, South Yorkshire’s Mayor Oliver Coppard recently called the Government’s funding for South Yorkshire’s buses “completely unacceptable.”

Funding is under pressure against the backdrop of reduced levels of passenger demand and reducing levels of post-Covid support grants from central Government. South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) has been unable to protect all non-commercially viable bus services that bus operators are withdrawing from the network and all concessionary fares at present levels.

AMRC website

Images: AMRC



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