Campaigners call for riverside walk to be protected in city centre
The Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust says a new planning application must extend public access to Porter Brook.
The proposal put forward by the Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust.
Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust.A trust that aims to improve and promote Sheffield's city centre rivers has called for a new city centre development to include public access to the Porter Brook.
The Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust wants to see two existing footpaths joined up after the Avec Building, which used to host Access Space, is demolished later this year.
The building is being demolished by Sheffield City Council to make way for a future development but will become a surface car park in the meantime.
"The deculverting and renaturalisation of the Porter on the adjoining NCP site and creation of the Pocket Park by the Council has been inspirational in showing his this small river can be transformed," wrote the Trust in a letter to planners.
They say that the existing building "occupies a key position for the future opening up and restoration of the Porter Brook and the creation of linked open spaces along Sheffield's rivers."
The Porter before it reaches the city centre.
AndyScott on Wikimedia Commons.The campaign is part of a much larger project by the Trust to join up missing sections of public access along both the Porter and the Sheaf.
The group is currently working to make sure new housing developments stretching between Decathlon and the Avec Building include public access to the river.
They also want to see new lightwells built on platform 5 at Sheffield Station, revealing the huge underground culvert where the Sheaf and Porter meet before flowing into the Don.
The application to demolish the Avec Building will be heard by the Planning Committee on 23 February. Members of the public can comment on the proposals until then.
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