Environment and Housing
Issue 41 May 2004
Divided
city
Figures recently published
by health services show Burngreave still tops the Sheffield tables
for deprivation, and the wealth gap between Sheffield neighbourhoods
is wider than ever...
Life on
Verdon Street
Prompted by recent complaints concerning
noisy neighbours, Rob Smith goes to find out what it’s like
living on Verdon Street...
BCAT
News: Burngreave Road taking shape
Plans have been in place
for the redevelopment of 12–14 Burngreave Road, to make
it more open and accessible to the community as a whole...
Community gardening
SCRAP is starting work
on the ‘community garden’ behind 127–131 Spital
Hill on Saturday 8th May...
Issue 40 April 2004
Investing in the
Vestry
The Vestry Hall is an important landmark
for Burngreave and one of the most visible signs of neglect in
our area. New Deal have now committed to spending money on it,
and they hope it will be back in use by September 2005...
So what
about the rest?
Other historic buildings
in Burngreave are also in need of use and renovation if they are
to avoid falling into the same state as the Vestry Hall...
Buses for
Burngreave
New Deal are considering
a proposal for two new bus services, to provide local links within
Burngreave linking us to Meadowhall and the new manufacturing
park proposed for the old Waverly coalfield in Catcliffe...
The Elders
Voice
The recent BCAF Quarterly
Forum put the focus firmly onto the issues facing older people
in Burngreave, and heard concerns following the announcement of
the early closure of Ellesmere Residential Home. Council representatives
described plans to improve home support and develop new ‘Extra
Care Housing’...
ExtraCare
– a vision of the future?
The Council are shifting
investment away from residential homes and into to home support
services, but many older people still end up in unsuitable houses
and often become isolated...
Old Jack
Taylor
The house on Skinnerthorpe
Road looked very old and was in need of some major repairs. Following
coverage in The Star in 2002 improvements were promised,
but when Rob visited he wasn’t sure that anyone should be
living there. At the age of 76 Mr Jack Taylor still is...
 Greening
Burngreave!
The Green Environment Programme
has made some real advances over the past year in making Burngreave
a pleasant environment to work and relax in...
 Area
Panel Local Action Plan 2004-2006
The Burngreave Area Panel
has been given nearly £400,000 of Neighbourhood Renewal
Fund money to spend on improving the quality of life for local
people over the next two years...
News
Roundup
Over 40 local residents
attended a meeting to talk about traffic problems on Grimesthorpe
Road and decide on a way forward...
At the last meeting of the Burngreave Area Panel the Council’s
Highways Service came along to talk about the Burngreave Transport
Strategy...
Greening up local
Surgery
A team of volunteers organised by Burngreave
Health Visiting student Mary Thorneloe, with the help of the local
Greenwatch Ranger, Henk Littlewood, got their hands dirty to brighten
up the grounds around Sheffield Medical Centre on Spital Street...
Issue 39 March 2004
Sweeping
changes for Council housing
‘Neighbourhood Commissions’
are being introduced across the city, to assess plans to bring
in the extra investment needed to bring Council homes up to the
government's Decent Homes Standard by the 2010 deadline...
Stop waiting
– make your bid!
From 3rd March, if you
are waiting to hear about the offer of a council home –
stop waiting! New offers will no longer be sent to those on the
waiting list. Instead applicants will be able to visit their local
Housing Office, or the city centre Property Shop, to choose from
whichever properties are available...
Woodside
Update
Concerns have been raised that the Woodside
demolition will not be finished on time...
Greenfingers
Greenfingers Horticultural
Therapy project is an exciting new project aiming to support the
high numbers of people with mental health difficulties in this
area...
Advancing
Together
Burngreave New Deal for
Communities signed up to a ground-breaking agreement with Sheffield
City Council, aimed at ensuring that people in Burngreave benefited
from major improvements in local services...
Issue 38 February 2004
Ellesmere closes
early
Residents and families were shocked
at the announcement of the sudden closure of Ellesmere Residential
Home for older people, the only home specialising in the care
of elderly Black people...
New
Plan for New Deal: So where’s the money going?
As Year Three of New Deal comes to an
end, this is the first year they have achieved spending targets.
We bring you news of where the money went last year and what's
being planned for Year Four...
Subsidiary pages:
Environment | Housing
Community
clean-up day
On Sunday 29th
February there will a big push to tidy up Petre Street Playing
Field...
Issue 37 December 2003
Fury over Parkwood
Health Study
Angry residents voiced fury when the
North Sheffield Primary Care Trust refused to recommend closure
of Parkwood toxic waste dump, despite people living nearer the
site reporting higher levels of illness...
Pollution campaign
The Burngreave Community Action Forum
Health Group has been looking at the effects of pollution in the
Burngreave area...
Spotlight on Abbeyfield Park:
Ninety year
old club forced out
Abbeyfield Bowling Club, founded in
1913, face the start of another season without a green fit to
be played on. This year’s attempts by the Council to reseed
the green were unsuccessful, twice...
Spotlight on Abbeyfield Park:
Other news
from the park
Roundup of events happening in the park...
Urban gallery
With demolition well underway, Woodside’s
walls play host to an urban gallery of Britain’s top graffiti
talent...
Woodside update
Only ten homes remain occupied on Woodside
now, with seven families waiting for their new homes to be made
ready for their move...
Kier say it with flowers
As a result of our coverage last month,
council contractors Kier Sheffield have changed their working
practices, and following a full investigation has issued an apology
to Mrs Shaibi and Mrs Kassim of Grimesthorpe Road...
Help for
tenants
In response to last issue’s article
on housing repairs, AKTARA have asked us to recommend that Council
tenants report repairs through their local tenants’ association...
New kit at the Adventure
Voluntary Action Sheffield along with
eight Sheffield Hallam University students helped erect a new
structure on Pitsmoor Adventure Playground...
Green
Watch Ranger Service
Greenwatch Rangers have been given the
task of supporting the work of the Youth Offending Team and Probation
Service in providing constructive reparation work in the open
green spaces, working closely with Youth Supervisors...
Issue 36 November 2003
St Catherine's back
St Catherine’s School is open
again and raring to go after two month’s closure due to
asbestos contamination...
Woodside update:
In the aftermath
Plans for Woodside immediately after
the demolition are being made. The Council is under pressure to
make the plans, have them agreed by the community and implemented
by the end of March 2004...
All roads lead to
The Highway
Amidst the rubble of demolition and
tearing down of Pye Bank and Woodside, I went and spoke to Paul
and Cathy Stead who have been running The Highway public house
for over fifteen years...
Housing repairs scandal
Kier Sheffield, who are responsible
for the maintenance of Council properties, presented a glowing
report to the Council. However the Messenger heard that
two families are having severe problems with maintenance in their
Council homes...
New plans to revitalise
the Wicker
The City Council and Renaissance South
Yorkshire have recently appointed a multi-disciplinary team of
consultants to develop a regeneration strategy for Nursery Street
and Wicker area...
Spending
doubled to clean up Burngreave
More resources than ever are going into
cleaning up Burngreave. That was the message from the Council’s
Street Force Service at the public meeting of the Area Panel on
2nd October...
Regenerating
Woodside
Would you like to have a say in the
future of the Woodside...?
A vision for Parkwood
Steam trains on the railway at the bottom
of Parkwood Springs? A cable car transporting people from Neepsend
to the top of the hill? Just two of the ideas from the Community
Vision Regeneration Action Plan...
Interfaith Tree Planting
Issue 35 October 2003
High hopes for the Hill
With New Deal projects and capital investment
getting underway, new business thriving and environmental improvements
in the pipeline, the future looks bright for Spital Hill...
Where have all the houses
gone?
With houses suddenly selling for more
than £100,000 and only 31 empty Council properties in Burngreave,
its not only the residents of Woodside who are struggling to find
homes in the area...
NOMAD Tenancy Support
Team
NOMAD Burngreave Tenancy Support Team
provide advice and support to tenants who were having difficulty
maintaining their homes, and who were at risk of losing them,
and are looking to recruit sessional workers to join them in their
new offices...
Safer
Burngreave
Burngreave is becoming a safer place
for householders, thanks to the Safer Homes Scheme...
Do
you care about the state of the streets in your area?
Are you concerned about fly tipping,
litter and graffiti? If so we want your help to make sure our
area is kept clean and tidy...
Issue 34 September 2003
St Catherine’s
contaminated
St Catherine’s School will not
open at the start of September due to asbestos contamination caused
during work on the roof, and the whole school has been sealed
off..
Migration Of Vermin:
The Woodside Update
For those living near the demolition
of the Woodside Estate, everyday has become a living nightmare...
Council Clean Up?
Last month the New Deal and the Council
announced they were ‘Advancing Together’, launching
a package of extra environmental services for the area...
Toxic dust at Parkwood
Spills of incinerator fly ash containing
dioxins and other highly toxic materials, have happened at Parkwood
landfill site, as revealed at the annual general meeting of Parkwood
Landfill Action Group (PLAG) in July...
The
Big Autumn Clean Up
Throughout October and
November we will be working with local community groups, schools
and the Council’s Streetforce service to clean up our area...
Other
news:
Making Burngreave Accessible to Everyone...
Issue 33 August 2003
Wheelchair access
on Verdon St shops
Paul Mortby has lived in Burngreave
for eight years, and during that time he has campaigned actively
for better access to local shops...
Woodside demolition
begins
The bulldozers and workers were already
dismantling what was now half of one maisonette, while wire fencing
and warnings of the danger surrounded others...
A
Great Deal for Burngreave
The Council is entering into a partnership
with us to bring more and better services to the area. Detailed
negotiations have resulted in a three-year plan in which the Council
has made a commitment to continuing to deliver at least the level
of services it already provides...
Security
grants scheme launched
Businesses in the Spital Hill area could
be eligible for grants of up to £5,000 to help them improve
security at their premises, thanks to the newly launched Security
and Environment Grants Scheme...
Hooked
on allotments
Joyce Silvera talks to
Gaby Spinks about her allotment and her days spent digging, weeding
and planting her site...
The Recycling Matters
team are moving in!
The Recycling Information bureau is
now nearing completion and the team are moving in, ready for a
Grand Opening Party in September...
Issue 32 June 2003
One down…
The first block of the Woodside estate
has been knocked down this month...
Carwood’s failing
heating system
Contacted by Jean Wood, chair of All
Saints Tenants and Residents Association, Rob Smith spoke to Adrian
Ford concerning the distress caused to local tenants due to a
persistent failure in the district’s heating system...
Firshill Tenants
Firshill Tenants and Residents Association
currently has twelve committee members and are an extremely active
group. They have representatives on all the local authority bodies
such as Area Panel, BCAT, Crime & Safety and Primary Care
Trust...
Open Up Burngreave
This year Burngreave became part of
the city-wide Open Up Sheffield, an annual event where artists
invite the public into their studios...
Allotments open
day
Gardeners of Grimesthorpe Allotments
celebrated the completion of improvements to their site. A team
of Park Rangers also helped allotment holders clean up their plots,
filling a skip in a record twenty minutes...
Green events
Diary of upcoming events...
Sheffield Inner
Relief Road
The Council now has planning permission
for Stage 2 of the Inner Relief Road, granted on 27th January...
New
lease of life for Sorby House
Sorby House, a major Spital Hill landmark,
is to be given a new lease of life as the hub of activities in
Burngreave...
Area
Panel Acheivements
Here are the things that you have made
happen over the last year through your Area Panel meetings...
Issue 31 May 2003
Euro-cash for Fir Vale
and Firshill
Firshill and Fir Vale will share in
£800,000 of European ‘Objective One’ money in
the next few years, along with Whiteways, Wensley Estate and parts
of Grimesthorpe and Shirecliffe...
New Things for Carwood
6.30pm, Monday 4th April, St Peters
Church Hall, marked the official re-launch of All Saints Tenants’
and Residents’ Association...
Bat corridor
for Roe Wood
Students and staff at Sheaf Training
College have been planting trees between Roe Wood and Little Roe
Wood to unite the isolated bat populations in the separate pieces
of woodland...
Watch
out for wildlife
It’s easy to feel that our area
is a bit of a dump, we look around and see derelict buildings,
litter and dog mess. But particularly at this time of year there
are other things to see, and open spaces around Burngreave provide
diverse habitats for wildlife as good as any in the city...
Green
Spaces
You can get involved now in planning
improvements and future projects on your green spaces, and you
can have your say at the Green Burngreave events, which will be
around in Burngreave all summer...
Waste
site abandoned
Northern Waste Recycling, who ran a
waste sorting site in Chatham, have abandoned the site and vanished
without trace, leaving behind a vast amount of unsorted waste,
derelict equipment and sheds, and a rodent problem for local residents...
Recycling Matters
A new enterprise on Spital Hill, Recycling
Matters, opens as a recycling information and waste advice centre
this summer...
Area
Panel Environment Meeting
Everyone in Burngreave will be able
to recycle paper and card by using the a new Citywide kerbside
collection that is starting this year...
Cammell’s give
up their humps
Traffic along Carlisle Street East and
Petre Street, Grimesthorpe has been disrupted over the last few
months by site preparation and Bomb Disposal Squads on the former
Grimesthorpe Works of Charles Cammell & Sons Ltd...
Issue 30 April 2003
Time to revive Carwood
Work has started on refurbishing Carwood
community centre. Residents hope that it could function as an
advice centre, with drop-in coffee mornings...
Seeds for Summer
Now that the days are lengthening and
it's gradually getting warmer, why not plant some seeds to brighten
up your garden? You can get really cheap, good quality seeds from
Netto and Lidl, but they do sell out pretty quickly...
Between a rock and a wet
place
A Rock Street resident has recently
had vandals throwing lumps of brick and concrete over her garden
wall into the pond which have split the butyl liner...
Plant a tree in 2003
The event, organised by the Council’s
Trees & Woodlands and Ranger Teams, marked the start of the
Burngreave Green Environment Programme’s Community Forestry
Project...
Issue 29 March 2003
Study examines landfill
effects on health
North Sheffield Primary Care Trust (PCT),
with the support of the Chemical Incidents Response Service, is
to investigate whether the Parkwood landfill site may be linked
to poor health...
Now's the time
If you've toyed with the idea of working
an allotment then now's the time for action. Grimesthorpe Community
Gardens Group, whose aim is to have a fully tenanted and worked
allotment site, has secured funds from New Deal...
Boomtown Rats!
Sheffield City Council's Parks, Woodlands
and Countryside Service and the Friends of Osgathorpe Park are
calling on all local people to help tackle the growing number
of rats in Osgathorpe Park...
Advert: Sheffield Environmental
Training
Issue 28 February 2003
Woodside rubbish
Following our recent coverage of the
decline on Woodside, the Messenger received a press statement
from the Council. We let local Woodside and Pye Bank residents
view and comment on this recent release from the bowels of the
council housing
Build your own patio
A patio is a good place to chill out
in the summer, somewhere to have a barbecue or a place for small
children to play. You can have flowerbeds round it, stand plant
pots on it, or even leave gaps in the paving and plant creeping
plants in them...
Issue 27 December 2002
Gardening is like
regenerating Burngreave, it's not too late to start
Daffodil bulbs are best planted in August
or early September, to allow for good root development...
Landfill Expansion
Proposed
New owners of Parkwood landfill want
to open up a fourth tipping area between the existing landfill
and the Ski Village at Parkwood Springs...
Recycling progress
Kerbside collections of seperate paper
and card waste will be started next year throughout Sheffield...
Issue 26 November 2002
The Osborn Mystery
Many local residents remember this impressive
building well, and are shocked that such a valuable community
asset should be sold off by the Council...
Woodside update
Tthe City Council have decided to clear
the entire Woodside estate, wavy roofs and all. A ‘green
space’ will be created, and left for up to five years, long-term
plans having not been decided...
Green Growth for Burngreave
Burngreave’s green spaces are
about to receive a £1.3 million boost through an exciting
new project called the Burngreave Green Environment Programme,
funded by New Deal for Communities, which aims to transform the
area’s parks, green places and open spaces...
Issue 25 October 2002
What a Terrible Mess!
The property around the Cannon Hall
pub, left for derelict over a year ago, has been the target of
fly tipping and petty youth crime for many months. Adding to this
urban decay is the ex - Esso petrol station, which stood next
to the Cannon Hall. It too has now been discarded without notice
or warning to the community it served...
Woodside: wavy roof
houses to go
All of Woodside estate, including the
distinctive wavy-roofed (or ‘upside down’) houses,
is to be demolished this autumn, following a Sheffield City Council
cabinet decision on 18 September...
Verdon Street Still In
Trouble
Many voices in and around Verdon Street
are still shouting for things to change, but shouts are all that
seem to take place as the future of both Verdon Street Recreation
Centre and The Furnival Café are presently in some doubt...
Monster rubbish burner
given go ahead
Objectors repeatedly expressed deep
concern over dangers posed by plans to build an incinerator to
burn twice as much rubbish as the current Bernard Road plant...
Community forestry
– towards a green & healthy Burngreave
The Burngreave Community Forestry Project
intends to plant trees across the New Deal area and beyond over
the next three years, on council land and, subject to consent,
private property, including individual gardens...
Issue 24 August 2002
Should they burn
rubbish in the centre of our city?
Decision time is coming for the new
incinerator proposal. The Council Planning Board will meet soon,
probably in September, to decide on Onyx’s application to
replace the current incinerator with a giant twice the size...
Joined up or cut off?
What will the new road mean to us?
In two years time a major new road could
be built between Burngreave and the centre of the city. It would
complete Sheffield’s inner relief road, running from Parkway
across the Wicker and through to Shalesmoor...
Gardening on a balcony
If you live in a flat and only have
a small balcony instead of a garden, you can still enjoy growing
flowers and maybe even some fruit and veg as well...
 July
2002
The North Sheffield PCT are studying
whether Parkwood
Landfill is bad for your health?
May
2002
There's Good
news for Crabtree Pond and a Grimesthorpe
Allotment open day while our regular gardening column has
tips for Vegetables
for the small garden.
The Area
Coordinators page brings news of moves to assess health around
Parkwood Landfill site.
April
2002
The campaign
to close Parkwood Landfill gathers momentum and we bring news
of planned
Shirecliffe demolitions. One correspondent suggests Burnrubber
as a new name while another complains of rubbish
spilling over from a waste processing centre.
The BCAF
environment group report on the struggle with bureaucracy
but our regular gardening
column recommends spring flowers and there are chances to
grow
your own on Grimesthorpe allotments.
March
2002
Details of plans
for Woodside demolitions and concerns about new signs in BurnWhere?
Our regular gardening
column recommends tree pruning this month.
February
2002
In the 19th issue of the Messenger
we bring news of further concerns about Parkwood
landfill site and the Bernard
Road incinerator, as well as alternatives for re-using
and recycling
as well as our regular our regular gardening
column.
December
2001
The future of Abbeyfield
park.is explored and help with your winter
garden.
Plans for a new
sports field are being made.
November
2001
Toxic
waste is our health in danger and do
we need landfill?
Pyrotechnics
in the garden
October
2001
Winter
gardening tips and free seeds
News on the future of Housing
in Woodside and Pyebank
500,000 tonnes of toxic waste on our doorstep. Read how The
Parkwood Group intend to operate the landfill site between the
Ski slope and Shirecliffe for the next 20 years
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