Cannon Brewery bought with £11m of taxpayer money to build 500 Sheffield homes despite 'warning' over details

Developers have used £11m of taxpayer's money to buy a dilapidated Sheffield brewery with a plan to turn it into 500 homes.

The Cannon Brewery site, in Neepsend, has been shut since 1999 and after 25 years has fallen to rack and ruin.

However, it has now been bought by developers Capital & Centric with a plan to build a "new neighbourhood" made of over 500 rental homes.

However, it comes only after the South Yorkshire Combined Mayoral Authority agreed to give C&C a £11.67m grant funded by public money - despite the Competition and Markets Authority warning in January the plans lacked detail and could be "significantly improved."

C&C claims it needed the taxpayer-funded boost to address a "viability gap" due to inflation on the £143m redevelopment scheme which it would otherwise be facing a loss on.

However, C&C claim that the Neepsend project, once complete, would help Sheffield City Council come closer to its home building targets, bring a four-acre brownfield site back into use, and boost the city’s economy by £4.1m a year.

C&C has previously delivered the Eyewitness Works flats project in Milton Street, Devonshire Quarter.

Investigative work on the Cannon Brewery site could begin as early as this spring.

Councillor Tom Hunt, leader of Sheffield City Council, said: "The transformation of the former Cannon Brewery site is yet another exciting new development for Sheffield. We are working hard with our partners to drive up housebuilding and regenerate parts of our city. The combination of new homes, new workplaces, retail and leisure will help to turn Neepsend into a thriving new neighbourhood. Sheffield is a city on the up and this new development will further add to Sheffield’s appeal as a great place to live, work and enjoy yourself."

Richard Spackman, development director at Capital & Centric, said: "Cannon Brewery has stacks of potential and, by collaborating with the council and combined authority, we’re unlocking regeneration at a massive scale but in a considered way. There’s a real buzz about the future of Neepsend as the city’s next growth district, but everyone wants to see the neighbourhood designed in a way that Sheffield can be proud of.

"Sheffield is having a real moment and is successfully attracting more start-ups, investment and people that want to live here. We committed to securing about £200 million of investment into regeneration sites in the city a few years ago and we’re making good on that vision, with a brownfield-first approach to growing the city and a pipeline of projects in the works."