The following letter appeared in Look Local, the online weekly paper serving the Upper Don valley. It is signed by a range of local people many with a long track record of public service. Please read it and then go to the Sheffield City Council website to sign the ePetition HERE and bring some transparency, accountability and common sense to the use of this public money.
To the Editor,
Your edition of 16th January featured an announcement of the submission of a planning application for a new Library and Community Hub in Stocksbridge funded by the Department of Levelling Up’s Town Deal programme. This was followed by a further media release announcing the submission of a planning application for the new building.
The project is said by a Town Deal spokesperson to be a ‘game changer for the town’ at a cost of £20.0m.
However the full implication of that figure is underplayed. It means that almost the entire £24m Levelling Up funding, plus an additional contribution from South Yorkshire Mayoral Authority, is to go to just four of the original ten Town Deal projects approved by the Government, and the overwhelming majority solely on the demolition and rebuilding of Stocksbridge Library/Community Hub, with some improved public areas on Manchester Road. Some new paths in Oxley Park have recently appeared and a new Hopper Bus service is still promised (but only assuming a private operator steps up which to date doesn’t appear to be the case ).
Yet even in the official statements the Town Centre project appears to be far from secured or certain. Given that a planning application has only just been submitted, that property acquisitions are not complete and that a tender process has not even started, the suggestion that work could start on site in the ‘late Spring 2024’ seems like pure fantasy.
We know the fanciful Funicular Lift project was dropped a long time ago although it still appears on the STD website. The proposed funding of a sixth form at Stocksbridge High School was not pursued after discussion with the school. Now four remaining projects, all well-supported in consultation, namely the Hydrotherapy Pool for the Leisure Centre, restoration of the Little Don River, upgrading of Stocksbridge Sports Club pitches and the Trails/Active Travel Project are all apparently unceremoniously abandoned, leaving partners and stakeholders of these projects largely in the dark, locked out of any useful explanation or information which would allow them to seek alternative funding or propose cost savings.
Of course the state of the historic shopping centre is one of the most visible symptoms of Stocksbridge’s problems. But whether just demolishing and rebuilding the Library and some new public realm are the best and only way to address those and other issues is a very different matter and is certainly not evidenced by the Board’s public statements.
The message to the other five projects is that only if there is any spare change from this Library gamble will any of them be revived, by when there will be little time left before the cash is clawed back.
The original programme approved by the Department of Levelling Up in 2021 represented a carefully balanced and broad approach addressing multiple issues and opportunities for the town, its quality of life, environment and economy.
Regrettably these highly controversial decisions have been taken behind a wall of secrecy. Entirely contrary to the very clear government and council rules, and despite promises to the contrary, the Town Deal Board has again failed to publish any agendas, reports or minutes for its monthly meetings since September 2023 – just when these decisions were being taken. Even when eventually released their minutes are usually devoid of useful detail or evidence. They have published no cost benefit or risk analysis of any of the projects. Yet they have publicly branded those local people who requested them as “vexatious” and “lobbyists” and have refused to even talk to us .
The Town Deal website, to which we are all regularly referred, misleadingly continues to feature descriptions of all ten original projects.
The results of public consultation carried out in October about a supposed alternative Trails project at Underbank have still not been made public.
In light of all this we call on the City Council as the Accountable Body for the Levelling Up Programme, to urgently use its powers now to halt this process and instigate a thorough review of the decisions taken by this runaway board before it is too late. Going forward we ask that they insist on massively improved representation, transparency, professionalism, objectivity and consultation in the management of this large sum of scarce public money.
Susan Abrahams
Trevor Bagshaw
Tim Rippon
Chris Prescott
Helen Kellar
Simon Ogden
Yvonne McMenemy