Sheffield City Council has submitted planning applications for preparatory archaeological work to protect the ruins of Sheffield Castle ahead of building an access road through the city's new Castle Park. The safeguarding measures cover remains uncovered during a 2024 excavation by Wessex Archaeology at the former Castle Market site, and matter because they will allow the 11th-century Norman castle to be showcased publicly for the first time in centuries as part of a wider £26 million regeneration scheme.

The £26 million project, being delivered by contractor Keltbray in partnership with the South Yorkshire Archaeology Service, Historic England and the Friends of Sheffield Castle, is due to open later in 2026. As well as displaying the castle ruins, the park will feature an events space evoking the site's 17th-century bowling green and will expose the River Sheaf, currently running underground. Excavations have already revealed previously unknown stone structures dating to around 1270, gatehouse towers with drawbridge remains, a 12.5-metre-deep medieval well, 18th- and 19th-century slaughterhouses, Civil War-era wooden stakes, and two cementation steelmaking furnaces sharing a single chimney, reflecting the castle's origins near the confluence of the Rivers Sheaf and Don and its royal market charter of 1296.