AndrewC

Some motorists like to use 'road tax' as it's a term which suggests that they are paying for the roads, and therefore have some greater ownership/right of control over them than users who 'don't', which isn't true at all. The reality of the situation is that they are paying a tax based on vehicle emissions. Accepting that reality would mean those some die-hard motorists accepting that the money they pay towards their car merely offset the costs inflicted by their car and therefore, no greater ownership or control over the roads than any one else. It is used regularly like this, yes, but shouldn't be. It should be challenged, for the reasons above. It gives a false impression of road 'ownership'.

Rumour has it Pret are trying again Sheffield, in the old pepperpot building on the corner of Pinstone Street/Cambridge Street. That's from a few months ago though so might be old/failed as a prospect.

Oh I'm not trying to, it would be a futile effort, but IMO it's a very shallow, one-dimensional mind that is incapable of seeing past the current state of any given run-down building, with all due respect.

Er......no. The fact that it wasn't in a presentable state - and it's potential was being judged by some people purely on that basis (rather than underlying architectural merits, and it's potential if renovated and reused) - was exactly the point I was making. Some people see a dirty, dilapidated building and judge it purely based on that, rather than having the vision/imagination to see it's underlying potential.

Just to be clear, are you saying the state of the building made it an eyesore, or the actual architecture of it? Because judging long-empty buildings by their state of repair and/or how clean they are is a dangerous way to look at things... Obviously if a building is beyond repair then it's no good, but if it isn't beyond repair, it should be judged on what it can/could be, not how it looks after years of neglect. I ask this because I can't believe anyone would think the Market Tavern - in a presentable state - could be described as an eyesore because of it's architecture?

I'd be as keen as anyone to try and use local businesses as much as possible but when it comes to aspects of Sheffield's management which are lacking - and I'd say it's branding and PR are lacking - I think it's right to look for outside help and experience. I think one major problem Sheffield has in it's governance is that it's always seemed reluctant to simply pick up ideas from the other major UK cities and say, "that's a good idea - let's do it here", almost as if Sheffield Council like being Gods who think up everything and do everything.

What was the reason it originally closed? With regards to the Great Gatsby or Gatsby as it was later known, it might not have been the cup of tea of traditional pub goers but it was a successful and popular bar for many years up until the post-covid era, and it generally offered something more interesting and characterful than a lot of fairly anonymous bars in the city centre. I'm generally happy in either kind of establishment so I'll be interested to see what it's like as the Foresters

To the trained/attentive eye, they are definitely working on different bits each time I walk down there, but I can appreciate how to most people it probably just looks like the same mess each time they see it. The pavement outside Boots for example was inaccessible when I was down on Saturday, whereas that hadn't been touched when I was last down.

Yes, I have some pics of my own from the 6th January and it is in sorry state, which does at least counter the narrative that there was nothing wrong with the structure on the eve of demolition. Of course, there might still be an argument that it has gotten in to such a state because it hasn't had proper care and attention from those who were charged with providing it, which is it's own crime. If people in the Council have lied about the state of the building and when it was due to be demolished, despite promises to delay demolition to other bodies, then that simply isn't on. It might seem like an insignificant building to some people, but generally speaking we have to take more care with what older, existing buildings we have left as they maintain links to the past and when they're gone, they're gone. We don't have the finances or planning culture in this country to do things like they did in Dresden where they rebuilt huge swathes of the old town they lost in the war, for example. And it might be one, small building today, but tomorrow that lack of care and deliberately destructive action might be applied to buildings like the Old Town Hall, the Graves Gallery/Library etc. And if you're the kind of person who can't see the worth in those buildings either, then I feel sorry for you. I understand it can be tough to find financially viable uses for some of these buildings, but it's often the case that those uses do exists, but because they offer a slimmer profit margin than tearing them down and starting again, it's often something developers don't want to do (though in fairness to developers, it's worth pointing out that often they are happy to incorporate heritage assets in to developments). Now, I'm not entirely against modern architecture, but its fair to say that any future urban landscape in this area would have been more interesting with the Market Tavern in it, than without it.

Better idea - more comparable in size with Hillsborough Park at least - but probably still not suitable as half of it is covered in mature trees - the current useable open space is much less than Hillsborough. Also questions about access - the site's roads are pretty much dilapidated I think? It's also right by the Lightwood House facility which I think would kick up an enormous fuss if someone suggested a 3-day music festival on the site next door.

Thinking outside the box is all well and good, but it's often ideas that can be shot down pretty quickly, for good reasons.

It isn't a good idea if it's clearly not feasible before you even get started. Of course, you do get places like Magna which put on live, multi-stage events, and many warehouses are used for raves/nightclubs, but none of those are the same scale of Tramlines in terms of crowds and facilities. Imagine the biggest disused building - or even just open wasteland - you can possibly think of in the industrial areas along the upper and lower Don Valley. Even the biggest isn't anywhere near as big as Hillsborough Park.

Which ones are available for use by the organisers, and more to the point, offer anything like the floor space that Hillsborough Park offers?

Genuinely not trying to be antagonistic here, merely curious - to what end is someone doing this? If the bus/tram is coming back that way anyway on the return from the terminus? Is this to get out of the elements, i.e. raining/cold etc., and not wanting to wait?

Broomhill is home to a wide variety of restaurants and cafes catering for a wide range of diets. I can think of a host of places selling meat-based menus so I'm not sure the 'large demand for vegan food' is pushing out meat-based options just yet. There is one other sushi place on the high street I think? I dare say the local area can accommodate another without much trouble.

I feel like Irene would probably spontaneously combust on the spot if a public-facing service provider approached her in shorts.

I saw it last night and tonight and from my house it is almost exactly in line with Hillsborough. Almost certainly this.

But that isn't what this company are proposing, and that's their choice. We can blame the way our train industry works if we think that is unhelpful, or doesn't properly address the real weaknesses in our local connections. If I badly need a new kettle, and someone comes up to me trying to give me a new toaster, that's hardly their fault, is it? If this was the local authority proposing this, and prioritising minimal London connection improvements over larger local connection improvements, then the complaint would be valid. We need improvements in speed and capacity all across our network. HS2 was more about network capacity than the speed. That message got lost, big time, and we paid the price. By the time a lot of people had got fixated on incremental time improvements that 'hardly seemed worth it', they'd overlooked the fact that we simply needed more space. Was everyone against HS2? I wasn't against HS2?

Even if that were true, would it really be that unreasonable? As a society we mostly all accept we need new homes, and local and national authorities have to invest in public utilities and services in order to accommodate growth. You're obviously dead against city centre flats but don't have any issue with suburban housing schemes; what's your understanding of the capacity of sewerage systems around say, the south-east of Sheffield where large new housing estates have been built over the decades on green-field land where virtually no historic sewerage system, not to mention other utilities and public services existed before development, and who do you think paid for all that?

BREAKING NEWS Utilities such as sewerage systems can be upgraded over time to accommodate modern needs, and, in fact, they often are. More to follow

Any incremental improvement on the travel time between Sheffield & the capital (or indeed anywhere) shouldn't be sniffed at, particularly when it means some extra capacity too. Sheffield folk, eh?!

Yes - I'm no expert on property development but I know a few people who are, and they all say the return on investment for this tower is probably no where near what it needs to be for this to see the light of day any time soon. There is a ~90m tower just breaking ground down on Tenter Street/Hollis Croft but otherwise, most residential projects in Sheffield over about 20 flrs just aren't making financial sense at the moment, planning approval or no planning approval.

Vague, buzz-word phrases that can be wafted in the general direction of any societal change with the claim that it's all somehow a conspiracy to grab control of your life. Believing these things are some kind of sinister plots that you and your fellow conspiracy theorists have somehow uncovered is just a way for you to feel clever in the face of people with actual evidence, education, understanding, experience etc. when they tell you that you're talking out of your rear-end. What have you 'seen' over the last 4 years?

I like this idea. Extend the tram within the city centre. It's probably still incredibly unlikely but it does seem like it could be quite effective, doing this. Okay, so you don't get a full new route out to a suburb somewhere, but you do help 'plug in' the south of the city centre to the rest of the existing tram system. You could even run it as far as somewhere just over the ring road, say to Summerfield Street if you went the Ecclesall Road way, or to Boston Street if you went the London Road way, or to Bramall Lane. You could apply the same principle to a Hallamshire Hospital extension.

Well obviously this bus driver is a part of the global reset soros lizard people scheme to force us in to a cashless society, or something.