Sheffield Council has funded the near-complete Heart of the City scheme, which has been gradually transforming the town centre with new office space, homes, restaurants, shops, Europe's largest purpose-built food hall and a public park. It followed a previous proposal called Sevenstone involving developer Hammerson being cancelled in 2013 after years of delays following the global financial crisis.
'The reason the council stepped in is because of market failure and if the council hadn’t stepped in, then we may still have been where we were 10 years ago. 'Yes there’s getting the units let, getting the income in but it is about generating the footfall and generating other developments that follow on. 'The council wants to see 36,000 new homes, 20,000 of which we see being in the central core area.