Footprint Tools, Site of 20 Hollis Croft and 31 Hollis Croft, City Centre, Sheffield
5 - Pre-determination assessment/evaluation not undertaken; heritage assets identified during development
The absence of pre-determination assessment/evaluation on all or part of the development site (e.g. because of difficulties with access, refusal to evaluate) led to the unexpected discovery of archaeology during development that caused problems, such as delays to the development programme and/or the need for additional resources.
7 - Pre-commencement archaeological conditions were attached to a planning permission
Pre-commencement archaeological conditions were attached to a planning permission and were necessary in order to enable the development to be permitted.
Non-designated heritage assets with archaeological and historic interest
Demolition of existing buildings and erection of a mixed use development incorporating student accommodation, comprising 346 studio apartments.
The site of Footprint Tools was known to have been the location of two early steel making sites, one of which had eventually expanded to cover the whole footprint of the modern Footprint Tools works.
Pre-determination desk-based assessment was carried out and identified that some archaeological evidence could have survived construction of the then standing buildings, although this was thought to be relatively limited - being restricted to areas where the buildings had not been terraced into the slope.
Given the presence of standing buildings, pre-determination evaluation was not thought to be feasible and the archaeological advisor to the LPA recommended a pre-commencement condition to secure appropriate investigation. Following the demolition of buildings to slab level, a phase of trial trenching was undertaken to confirm the site's archaeological potential. This work indicated that terracing had impacted on the survival of buried evidence but, despite this, there was good archaeological survival in several areas. In one of these areas, the remains of a pair of 19th century steel cementation furnaces was identified. As the scheme had consent, preservation in situ was not an option, since the scheme’s design was already fixed.
The impact of the development on the remains was mitigated by detailed recording of the furnaces and associated remains, as well as the more fragmentary remains of the earlier 18th century steelworks on this site; final reporting and publication are currently awaited.
Whether the additional work required put strain on the budget for the development is unknown. If evaluation could have been carried out pre- determination and the furnace remains identified at that stage, the archaeological advisors to the LPA would have requested them to be incorporated within the scheme.
The desk-based assessment predicted survival of buried archaeological evidence and a pre-commencement condition was successful in ensuring that important archaeological remains, probably of regional significance, were investigated.However, if the presence of the cementation furnaces had been known before a planning decision, they could have been preserved in situ by redesign of the development.
- Archaeology and Planning Solutions 2016, Hollis Croft, Sheffield Mixed Use Student Residential Development: Archaeological Assessment. Unpublished report.
- Wessex Archaeology 2017, Hollis Croft, Sheffield, South Yorkshire: Summary Evaluation Report Trenches C-H. Unpublished report 116361.07.
