Yet another rosey picture painted of Sheffield in the national press.

[skinz 10]

To be honest, if I stumbled into the Castle Market/Haymarket areas as a stranger to the city, I would wonder what planet I had landed on.

 

You don't have to be a stranger to realise it's another planet, you just need to realise you've stepped beyond your own personal boundary.

 

I just tell myself I got lost as an excuse.

[mossdog 10]

Well that's where you're wrong because the expansion, I assume you mean converting polytechnics to universitieis, began around 1991 when the tories were in office. Now let's stay on topic

There you go again!..................assuming everything, knowing nothing!

[dacrlit 18]

To be honest, if I stumbled into the Castle Market/Haymarket areas as a stranger to the city, I would wonder what planet I had landed on.

 

I don't know, what is up with you? It is a very good market, a bit shabby round the edges, but it has been up a long time.

[cuttsie 1,090]

I don't know, what is up with you? It is a very good market, a bit shabby round the edges, but it has been up a long time.

Bang On, Its ours leave it alone!

[goldenbabe1966 10]

Well,it may be posh up S10,but where I have the pleasure to live,the picture is correct,

We have drug dealers openly trafficing their filth,and nobody seems to care.

 

I have witnessed,in the middle of the day,two 14yr olds humping up against a wall, with a crowd of like minded idiots egging them on.

 

Although it has bettered lately,we have teenagers from the local "Academy", mooching around the local shops at all times of day,throwing their litter into the nearest garden,and generally causing mayham.

 

And to top it off,the local pub kept all the neighbours awake all night playing headbanging music until 5 o'clock this morning.

 

Eeh,I'm glad I got that off my chest.

 

Would this be S2 btw?

 

:suspect:Sound suspiciously like the area i live in.

Edited July 19, 2011 by goldenbabe1966

[JtotheC 10]

I think that basing a view of a whole city on one small area of trade is a little silly, it seems this guy went out with an objective of finding problems rather than hope. Perhaps the town centre is not fantastic, but look further afield in areas like Meadowhall, Crystal Peaks, Drakehouse, Chesterfield Road, Eccy Road - yes Sheffield may have lost bulk industry, but has gained in specialist areas, sport, retail, technology etc etc. Many other places like Barnsley, Rotherham, Huddersfield have died a horrid death but Sheffield is still stong and proud - just in a different way. I could comment that the last time I got off the train at St Pancras I was met by beggars, takeaways and police sirens and could not ask for directions to the nearest job centre for fear of being stabbed - but that would not be a representation of London.

[vahcon 10]

It a rip off of an article from the financial times a couple of weeks ago. A friend of mine who works in London but used to work here sent me it across

 

I dont have the link anymore so I hope the mods dont mind if I past it here in full, see what you think.

 

Cuts add to steel city’s suffering

 

Sheffield, like Rome, stands on seven hills. On one, overlooking the revamped city centre, sprawls the Arbourthorne estate. A temple to the solidarity of the interwar years, it is now a symbol of the fractured Britain of 2011.

 

Arbourthorne is at the heart of the Heeley constituency where 45 jobless chase every job, the second highest rate in the country.

 

The wide street of semi-detached houses where the local job centre sits opposite a shuttered printworks is as busy as the shopping street around the corner . Until recently it was unfamiliar territory to Jack Walker, 23, who had worked since leaving school. His bulging tattooed biceps testify to a willingness to put in a hard shift.

 

“I worked on the overhead power lines,” he says. “The company went bust six months ago and I haven’t worked since. There is not much call for what I do and there is not much else to do either.”

 

While work once took him all over the country, he is now back at home with his parents.

 

David Tyson, 20, left college in the teeth of the recession but never struggled to find work – until now. The trained motor mechanic resigned from his last job in May after he became frustrated with the conditions. “I was with an agency and they were mucking me about. I might get three days’ work one week, then one the next. It might be a night shift or you might start at 4am. I had had enough.”

 

That job was with a large commercial printer. Now he is after warehouse and retail work. “I went for a job in a shop yesterday. There were 24 there for interview. I looked around and thought, ‘I am never going to get this’. There were university graduates there. He has been looking as far as Chesterfield, 10 miles away, hoping to buy a subsidised scooter under a scheme for the newly employed.

 

Dion Wainwright, 20, already has the scooter but it has not helped. He has not worked in four years since leaving school. “I am looking for anything but it’s very tough,” he said.

 

Mr Wainwright and his fellow young unemployed are likely to be pushed even further back in the queue when public sector job cuts hit this city of 547,000. Now, even in leafy Sheffield Hallam, represented by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, there are 31 claimants chasing each job, the 16th highest ratio in the country.

 

As Sheffield’s steel industry downsized , the public sector stepped in to absorb the jobless.

 

The Home Office, UK Border Agency, Department of Work and Pensions and Department for Education all moved sizeable operations there in the past two decades.

 

Even they could not make up for the 70,000 jobs lost in the 1980s, a quarter of the city’s total, and forecasters believe as many as 7,000 of Sheffield’s 83,000 public servants now face redundancy.

 

The private sector is recruiting: Sky, the broadcaster, is creating 500 jobs at a call centre and Rolls-Royce is consulting on plans for two factories to make turbines and parts for the nuclear industry. But the numbers are dwarfed by the public sector cuts. Along the road from Arbourthorne’s job centre, those pensioned off early from the city’s manufacturing industries while away the afternoon watching their fishing lines at a small lake. Their numbers are likely only to swell.

[Scozzie 10]

I cant really see that any of what he said is untrue?

 

Except for the part where he said 45 people were applying for each job - I had replies from several applications letting me know in excess of 200 people had applied for the position.