Don Valley Stadium It was suggested that regional athletics competitions would move to the city's smaller Woodbourn Road Athletics Stadium, which closed in 2011. The nearest major athletics stadium would then be the South Leeds Stadium in Leeds. The council confirmed the closure of Don Valley Stadium on 11 January 2013. A final closure date of 30 September 2013 was set by Sheffield City Council in April of the same year and despite a petition signed by 5,922 people campaigning against the closure, plans were announced by Labour Party Councillor Isobel Bowler to start the demolition of the stadium on 21 November 2013.
Don Valley Parkway north along the river valleys had been lumbered and farmed, such as at Milne Hollow, but several natural areas remained by the 1950s. The forests of the Don valley had been where Canadian naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton spent much of his youth in the 1870s studying animal life. The Don Valley Parkway was not the first highway planned through the valley. In the 1930s, a "speedway" through the lower valley was promoted as possible depression relief. Unlike today's parkway, this road would have curved northwest near the Don Valley Brick Works and connected to Mount Pleasant at Davisville. The city