Sheffield City Council, with support from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), commissioned PRD to assess social and economic benefits of proposed extensions to its Supertram network for the city centre and city-region. The first extension would involve repurposing underused and disused railway infrastructure to connect Stocksbridge and Chesterfield to Sheffield city centre, covering a distance of 40 km and incorporating 17 stops. The other extensions would involve new track to extend existing tram infrastructure in the city centre, connecting Royal Hallamshire Hospital and the southern edge of the city centre through six new stops.

We started by developing a tram extension atlas which reviewed data relating to the communities and land uses falling within an 800m radius of each proposed stop. Data included house sale and rent prices, employment and income deprivation, risk of food poverty, land use, site allocations, local amenities, population density, and population characteristics. The atlas allowed us to identify development opportunities along the proposed routes and estimate what the tram extensions could bring in terms of new businesses, jobs, housing, and amenities. We also developed an individual one-page ‘spotlight’ report for each proposed tram stop to highlight local development opportunities and outcomes.

Our analysis estimated that the tram extensions, taken together, could spur 22,000 homes—almost 2/3 of Sheffield’s housing target—71 hectares of employment space for 22,000 jobs, around 100,000 additional residents having access to Sheffield’s Supertram network, and £171m in council tax and business rates revenue.

As a follow-up, SYMCA commissioned PRD to apply the same methodology to a potential tram extension from Rotherham to Killamarsh, which would pass through the region’s important Advanced Manufacturing Park.

Excerpt from our Sheffield tram extensions atlas