Important 'Streets Ahead' Roadshow on 13th February

The 'Streets Ahead' project will renew all of the roads in Sheffield and is being carried out on behalf of the council by Amey. Later this year, work in the Broomhill area will start on Tapton Hill and Crosspool. Next wednesday there will be a roadshow organised by the 'Streets Ahead' team to inform local residents about the road replacement work and what it will involve. Those who recall the gas replacement work a couple of years ago will recall the huge disruption involved.

The roadshow will take place at the Wesley Hall, Crookes, from 1 pm to 5.45 pm. It will cover details of the work to be done, and time scales for the work. Hopefull we will also find out about re-routing of local buses and relocation of bus stops.

Important Community Assembly meeting on 24th January will consider whether the Assemblies should be abolished

The Central Community Assembly (which is open to the public)  meets at 5pm next Thursday 24th at Quaker Meeting House (in town, just along from the Cathedral). 

The first hour is a 'Meet the Cabinet" meeting at which senior members of the council will be present to answer questions. The theme that night is supposed to be 'Youth', but this issue is likely to be sidelined given the 'consultation exercise' that has just been announced by the Council on whether the community assemblies should be abolished in order to save money.  The Council is requiring consultation responses to be in by 28th January, which gives communities no real opportunity to canvass opinions and to submit a considered response.

The Community Assemblies are one of the City's important democratic institutions as they allow citizens to influence and observe decision-making that directly affects local areas. There are many questions as to how the many delegated functions of community assemblies will be handled under the various options that are being considered for their future.

For more details about the options on the table, and for information on how to make your views heard as an individual, please visit the consultation page on Sheffield's website 

https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/in-your-area/community-assemblies.html

And if you can, go along to what may be the very last meeting of our Community Assembly!

Concert on 16 Feb promites Broomhill's very own recording studio and record label

We are Broomhill residents and we run a small independent classical music record label from home.  We are promoting our first concert, by the pianist Richard Bielicki, which will take place at the Upper Chapel, Norfolk Street, Sheffield on Saturday 16th February. Further detais are on our website: 

http://usonixrecords.co.uk/concerts/Sheffield_Upper_Chapel.html

It is a very special concert as Richard will be launching his first CD, The Sacred and the Profane, which consists of his own astonishing and entirely listenable compositions.  It will be the first time that some of these pieces have ever been played in public recital. Richard is also including some well-loved Chopin works in his programme, so there really is something for everyone to enjoy.

The CD was recorded at our in-house recording studio in Broomhill, so there is very much a local connection.  Details of our piano and studio are at:

www.pianorecording.co.uk

Tickets are available via our website www.usonixrecords.co.uk; payment is via Paypal or cheque. Tickets can be posted out or collected (or indeed purchased) on the door.

Southbourne Road light up Broomhill for the festive season

I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to all the residents of Southbourne Road, who yet again have brought joy to all of us this Christmas with their spectacular display of festive lights. This year's display is bigger and better than ever, but as always keeps just on the right side of good taste. It must be a huge amount of work putting up all those lights - not to mention the energy bills - but they have made me smile every time I pass by. I expect they'll be coming down this weekend so if you haven't experienced the magic yet GET DOWN THERE!!!!!

An evaluation of the Sheffield Air Quality Management Area scheme: Can it work and does Sheffield: City on the Move, really care?

Barry Francis, an MSc student at Sheffield Hallam University, has written an 80-page dissertation that evaluates Sheffield’s Air Quality Management Area.

Barry has very kindly agreed to make his work more widely available via the website of the East End Quality of Life Initiative, which is the organisation that carries out and reports on local air quality through its community Air Quality Monitoring groups. If you would like to know more about air quality in Broomhill, or access the link to Barry's very interesting dissertation, you can follow this link to EAQOL's website:

http://www.sheffieldeastend.org.uk/AQmonitoring.htm).

Last chance to object to the demolition of the Jessops Edwardian Wing

The council vote tomorrow (17th Dec) on whether to allow Sheffield University to erase an important part of Sheffield's Heritage.  The planning officer 'recommends' to demolish the Grade II listed Edwardian Wing of Jessop Hospital, this despite two of the Council's own advisory panels criticising these proposals. -(Shefffield Conservation Advisory Group and Sheffield Sustainable Development and Design Panel).  (see attached) 

The University have aggressively spread a number of false assumptions surrounding this issue, in particular the insidious claim that the building is of lowly architectural and historical merit. Both old Jessop Hospital buildings were listed as one item by English Heritage.  Of course if the University really believed their propaganda they would have applied for the Edwardian building to be de-listed   They haven't.

All official bodies consulted have objected, see here

More info, how to sign the council website petition here - but this must be done today Sunday 16th December.

http://www.jessophospital.org.uk

also

facebook.com/oldjessophospital

The (public) council meeting is at 2pm on Monday 17th Dec, Sheffield Town Hall - so only days now to voice your objection online. Please spare a minute to find out more and how you can submit an official objection online to the council.  The University have wheeled out everyone they can, now it is time for people power to kick in.  Please do it.  If you have time please email your councillors - they need to hear there will be a public outcry if this building is demolished

Community discussions with Sainsbury's

Sainsbury's contacted BANG to propose a meeting to discuss their planned new local store in Broomhill and this meeting was held during October. This is a brief summary of what we discussed.

The store will occupy the unit being vacated by Williamson's, who are moving next door to the unit vacated by Blackwells. It will be at the top end of the size range for a Sainsbury's local store. The nearest example to what is planned is the 'local' on the 'town' end of the Ecclesall Rd.

The manager will have discretion to respond to local wishes as regards stock, up to a point. For example a staffed delicatessan counter 'is not part of the local offering'; nor is home drop-off of shopping. Nothing was absolutely ruled out though, so it will be important to make sure that we give the manager feedback on what we want. We discussed our hope that the store would not compete aggressively with valued local independent shops but would complement what they provide and be an asset to all sections of the local community.

Opening hours will be 7am to 11pm. When we questioned why they had applied for licensing hours 6am to 24.00 we were told that this was a standard practice of head office but they had no intention EVER of opening after 11pm. We were also assured that Sainsbury's local stores do not feature bulk buy alcohol promotions.

The signage for local stores usually conforms to a standard package, however Sainsbury's did appear to be genuinely sympathetic to a different response in Broomhill that would be more in keeping with our conservation area.

Sainsbury's were aware of problems with parking and the under-use of the rooftop car park due to a history of aggressive management. An idea that they proposed to mitigate the parking problem was a refund of the car park charges for customers who spent beyond a certain level in the store. This would obviously be useful for getting people to reconsider using the car park. Current rate for one hour is 60p, which is 20p more than on-street parking, but less than the cost of driving to Waitrose.

The shop will not open until after Christmas.