Formally object to the planning application

Just to draw your attention this campaign to try and save the Portland works building on Randall street from the threat of being developed into flats.

Located in Sharrow, the grade II listed building is currently home to metalworkers, cabinet-makers, musicians, artists, sole traders and others.

The case for keeping the building as a home for little mesters-style workshops is articulated well in a letter in this week’s Sheffield Telegraph which describes the works as our ‘living heritage, not a museum or polished up piece of preserved past’.

Isn’t there a more appropriate location for flats, one that doesn’t involve threatening the existence of these historical workshops and small businesses? As the letter in the paper points out, some of the commercial tenants are proudly still practising the traditional manufacturing methods that made the city famous.

The online campaign is centered on the Portland works blog and a Facebook group which you can join to keep up to date with the cause.

Perhaps the most useful way of showing your support is to formally object to the planning application on the Sheffield city council website. The recent victory over East midlands trains regarding the station barriers was supported by 1,250 objections that will have no doubt been an influence on the planning board.

Object to the Portland works planning application

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‘The only place to buy Guinness cake in Sheffield’

A few months ago I asked @sheffieldblog Twitter followers where the best independent coffee shop was to be found in Sheffield. The responses included many of the popular outlets, although Bragazzis wasn’t mentioned which surprised me a little, as I rate that as one of the best.

While there is talk of Bragazzis imminently moving down the road to a bigger location, another gem of a shop opened last week a little further down Abbeydale Road: the Rude Shipyard.

You might have seen it mentioned in last week’s Sheffield Telegraph, and I would definitely recommend a visit. The place has a lovely feel to it, with bookcases lining the walls, proper old furniture and a collection of musical instruments in the corner which customers can play if they want. In fact, the atmosphere reminds me a bit of both Cocoa and Bragazzis.

The drinks are good – excellent coffee and a range of teas including sweet chilli – and the Guinness cake is amazing. The rest of the homemade food menu looks tasty, with eggs sourced locally from hens owned by friends of proprietors Sally and Pete.

You’ll get a warm welcome from the owners and they have plans for plenty of events including jukebox Sundays, open mic poetry and prose nights, bistro evenings and there is currently a competition to design the sign for their toilet door. Keep an eye on their Facebook page for what is going on.

Oh, and it is open until 8pm during the week and 10:30pm on a Saturday so offers a cosy alternative to the pub.

Amazing Guinness cake at the Rude Shipyard coffee shop, Sheffield

March 2009 update

Here are the latest additions to the Sheffield Twitter users page. If you want to be listed on it then follow @sheffieldblog, get in touch or comment below.

Plus – are you in the top Sheffield Twitter users on Twitter Grader?

Grow Sheffield – urban food enthusiasts
http://twitter.com/growsheffield

Craft Candy – a group of Sheffield based makers and artists who run craft fairs, workshops and generally share skills
http://twitter.com/Craft_Candy

Sheffield Newspapers – publishers of the Sheffield Telegraph and Star
http://twitter.com/shftelegraph

Hallam FM news – the commercial radio station’s newsroom
http://twitter.com/hallamfmnews

South Yorkshire Sport – a sub-regional partnership of decision makers responsible for the strategic co-ordination and planning of sport and active recreation
http://twitter.com/sportunlimited

Sheffield Steelers – ice hockey team
http://twitter.com/SteelersHockey

South Yorkshire-based wildlife blog
http://twitter.com/shefwildlife

Sheffield RSPCA – www.rspcasheffield.org
http://twitter.com/RSPCASheffield

Sheffield University Theatre Company
http://twitter.com/sutco

Sharp End training – online training and assessment company
http://twitter.com/sharpendtrain

Sheffield City Hall – venue
http://twitter.com/SheffCityHall

The Forum – Devonshire Street bar
http://twitter.com/ForumSheffield

The Common Room – Devonshire  Street bar
http://twitter.com/CommonRoom

The Old House – Devonshire Street bar
http://twitter.com/TheOldHouse

DQ – Fitzwilliam Street bar/club
http://twitter.com/dqsheffield

Bungalows and Bears – Division Street bar
http://twitter.com/bungsandbears

Craine – band
http://twitter.com/CRAINETHEBAND

The Nursery – band
http://twitter.com/InTheNursery

A rather belated post about the recent Steel City Tour homecoming gig at Sheffield Arena featuring Heaven 17, ABC and The Human League, all synth electropop pioneers back in the day. It’s peculiar to think that such glitzy futuristic music came out of Sheffield. While the music of Manchester and Liverpool embraced its origins, asserting it proudly and occasionally aggressively, the electropop movement in Sheffield stood in defiance against its grimy industrial surroundings. It was intentionally glitzy, glamorous and slick; unsurprisingly, so was the Steel City Tour.

I enjoyed the gig very much, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a gig that includes costume changes before! (The gigs I usually go to hover around the scuzzier end of the spectrum). I covered the gig for the Telegraph, there’s also a nice write-up on the Sheffield Blog.

Where to find out about Sheffield events

With the annual influx of new student arrivals settling into Sheffield life, I thought it would be timely to round up some of the online what’s on guides that are out there.

If you open any national newspaper you’ll see plenty of inspiration for what is on in London. Although Sheffield does now get more coverage that it used to, thanks in part to the Millennium galleries, we still have to work harder to find out this information, relying more on local coverage and communities (both traditional and online) for listings.

This isn’t a massive problem, as often some of the best things happening spread more appropriately via word-of-mouth and through organic networking channels. So keep your ear to the ground and you may unearth some quirky and independent happenings around Sheffield.

For now though a good starting place is these websites (in no order):

Event Sheffield
eventsheffield.co.uk
This site is run by the council and Spin Sheffield and seems to include quite a comprehensive round-up of big events within 20 miles of the city. Organisers can submit their own event, as long as it is ‘expected to attract significant visitors from outside the region and be of national/international significance’. So no matter how good your themed house party is going to be, don’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t get accepted on this site. There is also some sort of SMS service for Sheffield events to your mobile, but at 50p per text I won’t be trying it.

Sheffield Telegraph
sheffieldtoday.net/telegraph (the ‘Listings’ link from sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk is broken)
An online version of the newspaper’s weekly listings supplement. Click a category to see upcoming events. It is functional but feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, as the addition of an advanced search (e.g. to allow you to search by date, postcode) would make it much more useful.

The Star
thestar.co.uk
The Telegraph’s sister newspaper offers a ‘What’s on’ guide on their website, although it appears to be a flat page of text with no search option. What may be more useful is keeping an eye on the Ten things to do today page, however this URL changes each day and I’m not sure where this is consistently linked to from. Your best bet is to subscribe to their Entertainment RSS feed, which includes a link to the day’s page.

Sheffield forum
sheffieldforum.co.uk
The old favourite; if you are reading this blog then the chances are you have also stumbled upon this successful and busy discussion site. It has specific sections for Evenings out and Other events – plus of course you can subscribe to RSS feeds of these sub-forums if you wish.

Sheffield nights
sheffieldnights.com
As you would expect, this site focuses on Sheffield’s nightlife. Run by a Hallam student, I think it has had a recent redesign and looks pretty useful, as long as their event database is kept up to date. There is also a Facebook group.

sheffield-tonight.co.uk
sheffield-tonight.co.uk
Avoid this unattractive site, which despite proclaiming to be ‘your 24/7 guide to the best entertainment all night, every night’, is in face very out of date and bereft of events. I looks like it is some sort of joint venture between The Star and radio2XS. Seems to me like they would be better taking it down, as it is damaging for both brands.

Twitter
twitter.com
It you are on Twitter, then obviously keep an eve out for stuff mentioned by the Sheffield people you are following. And occasionally twitter.com/sheffieldblog will mention things happening, as well as other local news.

Are there any more I have missed? It seems like there is an opportunity for some sort of properly localised Sheffield events website with an up-to-date database, proper search functionality and open policy on the events they allow on it.

It is back and looks set to keep growing – but could do with a better website

The annual comedy festival returns next month, and it could be final one to be located solely in Sheffield. From 2009, the organisers have plans to expand it into Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster, which should further raise the profile of the festival in future years.

When it comes to comedy, I’m quite picky over what I enjoy, and even more picky over who I would go to see live. However, I’m looking forward to Grin up north, so decided to ask my friend – a writer for BBC Radio 4 and BBC3 and who has just returned from Edinburgh – what he recommends this year.

So, apart from the people you have probably heard of (Jimmy Carr and Dylan Moran), his picks include:

• Jason Cook (The Lescar, Saturday 11 October) – hilarious and really moving
• Rhod Gilbert (Memorial Hall, Sunday 12 October) – surprising that he didn’t win the main prize at Edinburgh this year
• Rich Hall (Memorial Hall, Monday 13 October) – an all-time favourite
• Tim Minchin (Memorial Hall, Wednesday 15 October) – one of the best shows in Edinburgh this year; a properly-done musical comedy
• Plus Mark Steel (Memorial Hall, Wednesday 1 October) and Comedy Store Players (Oval Hall, Thursday 2 October) would be well worth seeing

Or for another person’s recommendations, you can read a Sheffield student’s picks in their (new) blog.

The Grin up north festival brochure, bundled with a recent Sheffield Telegraph, is a good guide to who is appearing, but the website needs a bit more attention. Several of the shows from last year are still promoted on there (the text links need updating on the homepage), the website browser bar title still shows 2007 (getting this right essential for good search engine optimisation) and nowhere is an at-a-glace list of all performers. And can you not book tickets online?

When comparing this to the website for the upcoming Off the Shelf reading and writing festival, I soon realised that this also wasn’t much better. Likewise, there doesn’t seem to be a basic list of all events and the only way to view what is on is by downloading a pdf of the festival brochure – again, not at all search engine or user-friendly. By all means offer a pdf download, but surely the festival listings should be on the site as a minimum?

I really want these festivals to succeed as they are an important part of the cultural life of the city, but instead of being exploited as a key marketing tool, it appears that the internet basics are not being done well at all.

Part one of a two part post, identifying ways that the city can be improved. Here are numbers one to five (not in any order)

Sort out the traffic congestion
Is traffic congestion in Sheffield really that bad? According to this report Sheffield traffic is in the top 10 slowest-moving in the UK. If South Yorkshire is looking to further develop its economy by attracting business investment on an international level and also ensuring that its potential as a tourist destination is fulfilled, the road infrastructure must improve. As part of this, the problem of car access around the station must also be addressed, as the good impression visitors get from Sheaf square is soon forgotten once you are embroiled in the gridlock on the way out.

Focus on the city’s digital strategy
City leaders are recognising the importance of developing Sheffield’s digital and creative industries with the development of the Digital Campus, but the strategy needs to be more wide-ranging than this. We need to work further to encourage residents, businesses and community groups to embrace the technologies on offer in order to create a digitally-literate population. In Birmingham, a Get into digital festival took place in June as part of the Digital Birmingham initiative, aiming to “help make the transition from an industrial city to a digital one by driving forward the use of these technologies in order to increase prosperity, knowledge and quality of life of its citizens.” This is definitely something to Sheffield to consider…can we afford not to?

Grow the city centre as an after-work destination
The council has been working hard at promoting Wednesday night live in the city centre. It has recognised a need for the city centre to become a viable option for post-work and evening recreation. For too long, Sheffield has become a ghost town after the shoppers and workers have gone home, with people not feeling compelled to stay in the city centre. There is potential for expanding the after-work economy, but it needs the support of Sheffield citizens, not just the local authority and businesses.

Attract more quality restaurants to the city centre
Every week in the Sheffield Telegraph I enjoy seeing what the interviewee in the Food For Thought Q&A column says in answer to the ‘What do you think of Sheffield as a place to eat out?’ question. The most positive answer seems to be that Sheffield’s restaurant scene is improving but few people have much to shout about. There are good restaurants across the region but many of these in the suburbs or out in Derbyshire, and for every highly-rated one that opens, another closes. A limited number of chain restaurants is acceptable, but Sheffield also needs more high quality restaurants in the city centre, particularly ones that stay open late to cater, for example, for the post-theatre/gig/concert crowds. Which brings me onto…

Introduce a night bus services on key routes
If the evening/night economy were to expand then would it be worth trialling a night bus service? Currently, many routes finish around 11pm, and with town pubs now generally open later than this, I think there would be a demand for buses every half hour on key services out of the city throughout the night. The impact on Sheffield taxi drivers would need to be carefully assessed, but it would certainly help the queues and scramble for cabs in the early hours of the morning when demand outstrips supply.

Parts 6-10