Chinese Quarter

[Wapping Blade]

Actually Donny town centre pisses all over Sheffield city centre. It might be smaller but it’s brighter and more vibrant than Sheffield city centre – granted that’s not hard to achieve. The Frenchgate Centre in Donny is nothing out of the ordinary but it’s infinitely better than Sheffield’s shopping experience. You take Fargate out of the equation and perhaps the Peace and Winter gardens and you would be forgiven for thinking you’d landed in an eastern block city in the 1970’s.

Rubbish - it's a complete tat-hole fully of dodgy characters.

 

[dublin 10 blade]

I don't think it can be over-estimated the damage the likes of Betts, Blunkett, Ashton, Hattersley etc. did to this city, and I reckon we're still paying the price.

Agree .

 

[itsinyerblood]

Low and behold we are all saved, they have come among us.

Yes, lets hope the jobs that are created are not on those fucking no-hours contracts mate. The topic of IKEA and Sheffield almost has a War & Peace feel to it. Hope it'll bring the necessary benefits to the city.

 

[Bladesway]

There was a prog. on Monday - 'Low Wage Britain' or summat that started in Grimethorpe eek and described how ASOS (a low-rent 'fashion' house) had built a warehouse there. 3000 jobs, 'Call Me Dave' hot-footing it to claim the credit. Every job went to Poles or Romanians. And they were being ripped off with zero-hour contracts etc.
And that's a lot of the problem. Places like Sheffield have been allowed to get so down-trodden that these criminal firms know they can set up shop here and treat the 'workers' like shit.

People need to grow up and stop blaming the rest of the world for the problems Sheffield has. All someone elses fault (usually the government from our left leaning chip on each shoulder brigade of course), but actually a series of utter clusterfuck decisions has been made by various councils over many years and gradually other cities have moved on. As it got ever more desperate to cling to something it made ever more desperate decisions. Lets face it Sheffield is off the main railway network to the point where HS2 will not be going anywhere near the centre of the city, choosing Meadowhall, compared to even a backwater like Doncaster our train station is small fry. Compared to Leeds it is dwarfed. Our ring road is a constant source of non amusement, parking in the city is a pain in the arse, the moor is a mess that isn't going to get fixed any time soon, the tram is great if you are on the route but most people aren't, parts of the city centre are at best places you wouldn't choose to frequent. They even managed to make the market worse than it was before, which I have to say takes some doing.

Make your way around Sheffield on a Sunday and its a non event. This is one of britains biggest cities and should be on a par with Leeds and Manchester, its nearest rivals. It isn't. It's a fucking ghost town.

The council perhaps take too much stick but nothing ever changes. Christ its cheap enough to build in compared to places like Leeds but no one wants to. I hear excuses like too sprawling, too big, town centre goes on for ever but no one ever comes up with a solution to that. Sheffield moans and bitches like a spoiled little kid that lost its sweeties but never actually sits down and changes itself.

I love Sheffield but it sucks my soul out when I look around the place. So much potential wasted.

 

[Jon Bon]

Rubbish - it's a complete tat-hole fully of dodgy characters.

Yes Sheffield is. That's what I was saying...

 

[Benny and the Blades]

What's the problem ?
Sheffield became a city on the back of Coal, steel and manufacturing,. work it out for your self

 

[alcoblade]

People need to grow up and stop blaming the rest of the world for the problems Sheffield has. All someone elses fault (usually the government from our left leaning chip on each shoulder brigade of course), but actually a series of utter clusterfuck decisions has been made by various councils over many years and gradually other cities have moved on. As it got ever more desperate to cling to something it made ever more desperate decisions. Lets face it Sheffield is off the main railway network to the point where HS2 will not be going anywhere near the centre of the city, choosing Meadowhall, compared to even a backwater like Doncaster our train station is small fry. Compared to Leeds it is dwarfed. Our ring road is a constant source of non amusement, parking in the city is a pain in the arse, the moor is a mess that isn't going to get fixed any time soon, the tram is great if you are on the route but most people aren't, parts of the city centre are at best places you wouldn't choose to frequent. They even managed to make the market worse than it was before, which I have to say takes some doing.

Make your way around Sheffield on a Sunday and its a non event. This is one of britains biggest cities and should be on a par with Leeds and Manchester, its nearest rivals. It isn't. It's a fucking ghost town.

The council perhaps take too much stick but nothing ever changes. Christ its cheap enough to build in compared to places like Leeds but no one wants to. I hear excuses like too sprawling, too big, town centre goes on for ever but no one ever comes up with a solution to that. Sheffield moans and bitches like a spoiled little kid that lost its sweeties but never actually sits down and changes itself.

I love Sheffield but it sucks my soul out when I look around the place. So much potential wasted.

I agree with a lot of that. It's nobody else's fault. But I always think perspective is lost in these debates.

Sheffield gets compared to Manchester and Leeds, really because of proximity in the population tables. The fact is, Sheffield is the center of a much, much smaller conurbation that both those cities. This is further complicated because the unlike the other 2, the center of the population is skewed geographically. Half of Sheffield is engulfed in the peak district, with no population. So developers (mainly retailers) want to migrate to the east, near to the M1 and the South Yorkshire conurbation.

The council is criticised for not getting developments done quickly enough, but you can see that in some sectors (eg The Universities) this problem doesn't exist. The main problem is that the council is trying to fight the retail flight East, and that's possibly a mistake.

The decision to build Meadowhall is another "mistake" levelled at the council. At first sight, you can see why. But in the end, the developers of Meadowhall were going to build it in the M1 corridor, whatever. If Sheffield refused, Rotherham or Barnsley would have gained. What was the right thing to do?

The council is an easy target. Being left wing it will always be seen as anti-business / pro social. I'm sure it is, and some criticism is deserved. But the issues are much more complicated than the headline "Look and Manchester".

UTB

 

[Bladesway]

What's the problem ?
Sheffield became a city on the back of Coal, steel and manufacturing,. work it out for your self

Leeds on the back of cloth and engineering, Manchester the same, Liverpool as a port. Difference is the others aren't still waiting for the old industries to deliver, they have invested in new ones.

 

[Canterbury Blade]

But you can see 'osses in front gardens.

Ah you can only see em in the front garden in daylight.

By night they get 'taken' round to the back garden for a little bit of neighbourhood conjugal...

And for strict clarity the 'osses are tethered on waste ground or allotments, as what gardens they do have are for keeping last years TV or this years pit bull in..

And yes, I walked from the ground to the station and down that alley way after the game last year and there really was a 'Oss there. Amazing!

 

[axel smeets]

Ah you can only see em in the front garden in daylight.

By night they get 'taken' round to the back garden for a little bit of neighbourhood conjugal...

And for strict clarity the 'osses are tethered on waste ground or allotments, as what gardens they do have are for keeping last years TV or this years pit bull in..

And yes, I walked from the ground to the station and down that alley way after the game last year and there really was a 'Oss there. Amazing!

I also saw the aforementioned 'Oss.

 

[shorehamview]

But you can see 'osses in front gardens.

In front rooms too if you look closely enough.