Questions over strategy as Sheffield’s ‘at risk’ Beehive Works may be brought back to life

Sheffield City Council’s transport, regeneration and climate policy committee members discussed the opportunity to help restore the city’s Beehive Works building as the owners don’t have enough money.

Beehive Works (made up of seven or eight separate blocks and set around two central courtyards) is in the Milton St neighbourhood, which is emerging as a new residential area within the wider Devonshire Quarter.

A report published ahead of a committee meeting showed that the owners of the grade II*-listed Beehive Works had approached the council and Historic England to discuss proposals to “safeguard the building, celebrate it and ideally bring all of it back into commercial use”.

They want to restore the entire building for a range of commercial purposes including offices, food and beverage, retail, makers’ workshops and potentially museum/arts/venue space, too.

The report said: “The owners, who inherited the building, estimate the full cost of the project to be £3.9m, with a funding gap of £2.6m.

“They hope to secure support from Historic England by way of a heritage repair grant for £0.4m, which would go towards safeguarding the future of the four-storey Egerton St block, the most vulnerable part of the Works.

“That would reduce the overall funding gap to £2.2m.”

Cllr Ian Horner (Beighton, Liberal Democrats) asked about where the funding would come from.

He was told that in terms of any financial commitment, “there is none, other than officer-time to explore the possibilities at the moment”.

The owners are seeking strategic support from the council for their proposals and reassurance that the project sits comfortably with the recently adopted heritage strategy and emerging growth plan for the city, and that it would be a strong candidate for relevant funding streams.

Beehive Works is an allocated housing site within the Sheffield Plan, for an estimated 46 units, but the document said the building was in the Flexible Use Zone, so it could be used for commercial purposes too.

As one of only two grade II*-listed buildings of its kind in the city, Beehive Works, which has been on Historic England’s “at-risk register” since 2018, occupies a significant place in Sheffield’s industrial history, the report added.

Beehive Works was originally built as a cutlery factory in the late 1850s, and while some of the buildings are still in use, much of the property is vacant and in a poor state of repair.

Members of the committee also discussed other regeneration projects in the area – for example Moda’s proposed 410-unit scheme at Hanover Way.

At the meeting, Cllr Christine Gilligan Kubo (Hillsborough, The Green Party) asked David Mason, a principal development officer, why built-to-rent (BTR) was “preferred over occupancy”.

She also asked how “do we ensure we get affordable rent” and long-term tenures in buildings being built for BTR.

Mr Mason said – the first part of the question – is down to “market conditions”.

He added one of the other reasons is the difficulty of providing, in particular, high-density development for private sales.

Mr Mason said: “So apartments are generally less attractive to private sale market, so inevitably when you’re in a city centre situation and you’re building high densities that does tend to mean that you more often than not led as a developer towards a rental model and it tends to be less risk involved as well.”

In terms of affordable rents, Mr Mason added after the local plan is adopted Sheffield will have a 10 per cent affordable housing requirement across the city centre.

When asked again how the building could be made a place where people want to live “longer term”, Mr Mason said: “You make them affordable, affordable homes. As landlords, we have the opportunity to do that.”