New Retail Quarter - is it going to happen?!

[Tony 10]

There will be a lot of "subject to" clauses in that contract.

 

I totally agree with you on the need for the NRQ, but I for one still feel gloomy about it happening.

 

One glimmer is that an order has been placed to move some of those services from Cambridge Street at a cost of around £3m.

 

Slow, but keep them crossed. I suspect that a VERY watered down version of the NRQ is what might happen eventually, but to put dates on it would be wild speculation.

[AndrewC 310]

I also heard Kingdom were being a bit stubborn.

[nick2 10]

Are my dreams of a Sheffield version of The Bullring slowly fading then ?

[NewcastleOwl 10]

Originally posted by nick2

Are my dreams of a Sheffield version of The Bullring slowly fading then ?

 

Well here's the irony.

In about 2002/2003 I took a taxi from Birmingham International station. The brummie cab driver was talking about all the road works in central Birmingham to do with the construction of the New Bullring and Selfridges etc. He was excited to explain that the plans were to have a state of the art central shopping area "like Sheffield". I explained that I originated from that fair city and that surely he was refering to Meadowhall, albeit that I would hardly say that Meadowhall is state of the art. But the taxi driver said "no, Sheffield city centre". I chuckled to myself quietly and politely nodded - thinking this guy obviously was thinking of somewhere else.

 

Later it occured to me that he must have read some article in his local rag and got a little confused. He probably did mean Sheffield centre - the NRQ, but failed to realise that this was not built yet, even though it won a major award for the plans.

 

So, it appears that the Bullring was designed along the lines of Sheffield's proposed NRQ, but because of all the delays to the latter project, the Birmingham scheme ended up being conceived, designed and built, faster than Sheffield could divert a single electricity cable!

 

That's just so typical of the pace of change in Sheffield. Take the Supertram for example. No point in recounting the whole saga on this thread, but basically the scheme in one form or another had been mooted since the seventies, then became a seroius proposition in the eighties. The intention was then to at least get the system operating in time for the World Student Games in 1991, but it was actually years later when the system eventually opened. Even then, to secure funding from the Tory government, major critical compromises had been made to the scheme - the need for it to be privately operated after two years (hampering chances of it integrating with bus routes/timetables), routes cut back to a bare minimum, etc. During all this time Manchester managed to think of the idea after Sheffield and still get a system built before us. They've now even had time to extensively extend there Metrolink system.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting Sheffield develops at an unsustainable pace for the sake of it, or throws up new buildings and infrastructure at the same rate as Shanghai, in fact the slow pace of change and conservative attitude can be refreshingly different from other British 'clone' cities. Living in Newcastle, if I want to see at first hand how the late Victorians/Edwardians lived, I can choose to go to Beamish open air museum (10 mins down the A1) or visit my home town of Sheffield and wander freely around!

[SheffBloke 10]

Don't forget the inner ring road......that's taken at least 25 years to deliver.

SHEFFIELD..............LIGHT YEARS BEHIND.

[NewcastleOwl 10]

Originally posted by SheffBloke

Don't forget the inner ring road......that's taken at least 25 years to deliver.

SHEFFIELD..............LIGHT YEARS BEHIND.

 

Yeah - I would argue longer than 25 years.

 

Originally there was a scheme back in the 70's (or was it even the 60's) called the Civic Circle. This was to be like a high speed city centre loop road (on a tighter radius than the later inner relief/ring road), of which Arundle Gate / Eyre Street was a part. This was effectively the precursor to the inner ring road. But alas, in typical Sheffield style, it was NEVER finished.

 

So you ended up with this crazy situation of the dual carriageway of Arundle Gate (before its 90's downgrading) effectively splitting the city cntre into two for pedestrians, without being part of a completed traffic ring to benefit the motorist either! - I learnt all this from the Star (it happened before my time), so forgive me if there are thousands of inaccuracies here.

 

The road we now call the inner relief road started out with the buildiung of the dual carriageways at Upper Hannover Street / St. Mary's Gate to the west decades ago, as SheffBloke alludes to. The phase under construction right now (northern section - Sheaf Quays to Shalesmoor) which will be finnished in about 2 years time? will still not complete the road in my opinion. This is because there will still be a 'weak link' slow section between Granville Square and Park Sq via the front of Midland Station. The council in the late 90's had planned to dig a giant tunnel under Park Hill to take through traffic behind the station. But whilst other cities seem to be able to build tunnels, Sheffield said they could not get the necessary funding and so the scheme was shelved.

 

Therefore I am saying that we will end up with an Inner HORESHOE Road after MORE than 25 YEARS of waiting!!!

[Sony 10]

I came to Sheffield from France, about 6 years ago. I was born here, but my parents moved to France when i was two so I only remember the Sheffield from the year 2000.

In 5 years it has improved dramatically. But when my mum comes here a couple of times a year, she keeps telling me that Sheffield is a very "local" city..

I hate to admit it but she is right. Having seen quite a few other british cities, sheffield feels very small and very "uninternational".... Its changing, but it'll take at least a decade to have a decent city centre, and even longer for decent jobs in the city.

Apparently Sheffielders aren't overly qualified and most graduates have to leave the city as they cant get a decent job..

[firecracker 10]

Originally posted by Sony

I came to Sheffield from France, about 6 years ago. I was born here, but my parents moved to France when i was two so I only remember the Sheffield from the year 2000.

In 5 years it has improved dramatically. But when my mum comes here a couple of times a year, she keeps telling me that Sheffield is a very "local" city..

I hate to admit it but she is right. Having seen quite a few other british cities, sheffield feels very small and very "uninternational".... Its changing, but it'll take at least a decade to have a decent city centre, and even longer for decent jobs in the city.

Apparently Sheffielders aren't overly qualified and most graduates have to leave the city as they cant get a decent job..

Something that bears what you write out - just look at employment sites like Jobserve or CWJobs (Computer Weekly jobs). Did a search typing in Sheffield on CWJobs - got 95 results. Typed in Leeds and got 388 results. Also for all jobs on Jobserve - typed in Sheffield - 174 results, and for Leeds - 733 results.

[qazitory 10]

Originally posted by Sony

Apparently Sheffielders aren't overly qualified and most graduates have to leave the city as they cant get a decent job..

 

Sheffield has the highest percentage of graduates who study in the city carry on to live here.

 

So how can you say that?

[jazz 10]

yeah i also heard that, so sheffield can't be that bad can it? This forum is now just for people who like to moan moan moan whatever happens. Always moaning about the council not showin enough imagination but if anything does show imagination eg the new 31 storey St Pauls tower then people moan again- "what do we need that for?" bla bla bla. No wonder we don't have a decent council- you lot of moaners are enough to make anyone give up hope.

[Guest_225 10]

Originally posted by qazitory

Sheffield has the highest percentage of graduates who study in the city carry on to live here.

 

I am one, my wife is one

[pete_jim 10]

Having worked away from Sheffield for 10yrs after college (still having a home here though) and for the last 15yrs run 5 businesses in Sheffield this thread has been fascinating.

 

We searched all over for premises for our latest venture, particularly in the town centre. We just could not see any one area being able to support our business. Now it maybe that this business is not suited to a town centre but we came to the conclusion that the centre is in such a state of flux with no one body responsible, for delivering an agreed upon plan.

 

I know that people will point out the various agencies operating in the area but it still seems very disjointed and to have very little power. Notwithstanding the associated politics the last body with any vision and power that achieved anything was the SDC in the 80's and 90's.