Urban Splash heads for Park Hill finish line

A fifth and final phase of the landmark Sheffield estate’s redevelopment is now in the hands of the city council.

Planning advisor Made it Together has now submitted plans for the Talbot Street block within the listed Brutalist housing complex, with Mikhail Riches, designer on the well-received second phase, once again the architect.

All told, the application covers refurbishment and alterations to 105 flats, along with a request for flexible use on a 2,259 sq ft ground floor space.

The flats range from one to four bedrooms and are located at the higher end of the site on the elevation facing into the city centre, over and across South Street and Sheffield station.

On the professional team are Estrada Ecology, Civic Engineers, Austin Smith Lord (as landscape architect), Buttress advising on heritage, Broadfield Project Management, Sandy Brown on acoustics, CHPKFire, Booth King and Salford Environmental Consultancy.

Phase five is presented by the architect as having four flanks. It has an existing lift core at the knuckle of Flank H and I, which will have a private residents lobby at ground floor and a new lift installed.

There is a stair core at the end of Flank L for residents to access Norwich Street, while flats on Long Henry and Norwich Street will be accessed via the ‘streets in the sky’ that make Park Hill so notable.

The flanks of phase five, as set out by Mikhail Riches. Credit: planning documents

New ground floor ‘ground level access’, ‘townhouse’ and ‘plus type’ units will be accessed via their own front door at ground level. At ground level at the knuckle of Flanks J and K an existing cut-through is proposed from the private residents garden to Talbot Street for residents’ use.

According to Mikhail Riches’ design & access statement, for phase five it is proposing the same balcony colour palette as that used in phase two, which it abuts on the South Street side.

The architect’s work on phase two was recognised at this year’s RIBA Yorkshire awards.

All three flanks of phase one at the 32-acre estate were carried out between 2007 and 2013, with the phase three Alumno student accommodation completing in 2021 and phase two completing a year later.

Initial plans for phase four, which was to include an art gallery, were not implemented, with a replacement scheme, by Splash with Places for People being approved in November last year, again working with Mikhail Riches.

The phase five application is now validated on Sheffield’s planning portal, with the reference 24/01672/FUL.

Phases two and five join on the South Street side of the estate. Credit: Place North