Bring out your dead… slowly

Sheffield Council is running out of places to put people, in more ways than one. While we’re all painfully aware of the housing shortage and the consequences it has for the city’s most vulnerable, there is another “looming disaster” on the horizon, as the city runs out of places to house the dead. The council last opened a cemetery in 1950 and estimates that the Muslim community, whose faith dictates the dead must be buried rather than cremated, will run out of available grave sites in as little as three years. Something needs to be done — and fast. 

That’s today’s big story. Plus: revisiting one of the best Arctic Monkeys’ albums and a queer comedy night at the Showroom. 

In case you missed it

For our weekend read, The Tribune’s new intern, Misty Lamb, wrote about a local company willing to pay £40 for the right to sell your face. Ten24 specialise in making hyperrealistic 3D digital models and hope to scan as many faces as possible at their Sapiens shop in Orchard Square, which they plan to sell to the video game industry. Quite a few members found the idea distinctly unnerving, although some were inspired to flog their own visage. Top comment goes to Lindsay, who followed up an extended screed against the dangers of AI with “while I hate AI, I like free money. So I nipped down to Sapiens, who were very nice, and was out in a jiff with cash in hand. Easiest forty quid I ever made.” You can read that piece here.

Earlier in the week, our paying members received an extra two editions of The Tribune. In the first, Dan visited two exhibitions of 20th century Sheffield artists who don’t fit the “Sheffield art” mould. In the second, Victoria spent a day with Sheffield Council CEO Kate Josephs — and accidentally made her cry. You can read an excerpt of that piece below. 

With the exception of the period we spend rehashing Partygate, the time she appears most uncomfortable is when I point out that there’s been quite a changing of the guard when it comes to the senior officers at the council. “There’s not many old-timers left now,” a councillor points out. “I think she’s broadly well-liked by the team she’s got now but most of those are her supporters or people she has brought into the council.” Josephs chooses her words very carefully. “There was a need to bring some new ideas and there were colleagues in the council who were ready to move on,” she says, before adding: “We’ve got a lot of colleagues who have been at the council for decades and we’re really lucky to have that level of experience.”

The big picture: Fargate, finally? 🏗️

Dare we say it, but is Fargate finally approaching completion? The multi-million pound revamp of what was once Sheffield’s premier shopping street has taken almost two years, but now seems to finally be taking shape. There is no word from the council yet about when a formal opening might take place, but we reckon the big day should happen in the next few weeks. To read our piece about the decline and rebirth of Fargate from January click here. 

Big story: Bring out your dead… slowly

Top line: Sheffield Council is in a race against time to find more land to bury the dead. Currently, six of the city’s 16 cemeteries have no new spaces available. This is particularly worrying for some religious communities, including Muslims and Jews, whose faith requires burial rather than cremation. 

‘I don’t want to be here’: In December, Abid Hussain from the South Yorkshire Muslim Bereavement Trust presented a petition with more than 7,000 signatures to the council, which demanded more space be found within two years. “I don’t want to be here,” he told the chamber. “This is my council, I want to work with you, not against you.” 

Hussain mentioned that, only the week before, a 108-year-old Muslim veteran of both World Wars had passed away. “He got more medals than I’ve had hot dinners. Imagine if he passed away and there was no grave for him.” If nothing changes soon, the council estimates that the local Muslim community will run out of graves in as little as three years. 

A decade-long countdown: Councillor Kurtis Crossland (chair of the Communities, Parks and Leisure Policy Committee) said the problem had been looming for over a decade. “Every person deserves the dignity of being laid to rest in a way that honours their beliefs and their wishes,” he said. He noted that he and previous chairs of his committee had all tried to secure more land for burials and been unsuccessful, but that he hoped the petition would clear the blockage. “If the Communities, Parks and Leisure Policy Committee wants more land, if officers in the [bereavement] service want more land but the council is still not producing more land, then something is definitely broken here.” The council last opened a new cemetery in 1950.

The blockage: Land is a valuable and finite resource, especially given the council also aims to build more than 1,000 extra council homes by 2029. During the debate in the council chamber last December, it was suggested that “the blockage” preventing Cllr Crossland from solving the problem was that his committee didn’t have the authority to demand land be made available. As Abid Hussain argued, the issue therefore needed to be dealt with by the council’s most senior leaders, asking “Why burden Cllr Kurtis with a job he can’t complete?” At the end of the debate, councillors voted unanimously to refer the issue to the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee, which is chaired by council leader Tom Hunt. 

Eight secret sites: The draft Local Plan for Sheffield does not include new cemeteries but, after reviewing all council-owned plots over five acres and a range of other sites, officers have selected eight potential locations, which are currently not being revealed to the public. Following the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee meeting later this week, the council’s Bereavement Service and finance team will work out a way to fund the new burial sites, “including prudential borrowing and using income generated by the service”.

Bottom line: While hopefully this problem should be resolved soon, it’s concerning that it took a public outcry to clear the way forward. If Sheffield’s Muslim population was smaller or less organised, would the problem have been kicked yet again into the long grass? As Councillor Richard Williams, of the Liberal Democrats, told the chamber last year: “It’s an embarrassment to the city and the council if it can’t bury its dead. Just do it, just get it done.” 

Your Tribune briefing 🗞️

🌍 University of Sheffield students are urging their alma mater to cut ties with the Drax power station in North Yorkshire, which is “the UK’s biggest carbon emitter,” Now Then reports. The institution made a deal with Drax in February, allowing the company to use its new Energy Innovation Centre to develop new technologies. Dr Ann-Marie Williamson, a scientist and Extinction Rebellion campaigner, told Now Then the university was thus “aligning itself with an environmentally damaging, high-polluting corporation”. 

🎸 Over the weekend, The Sunday Times published their list of the 25 best albums of the 21st century (so far), listing the 2006 Arctic Monkeys album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not at number nine. It was a reminder to revisit The Times’ profile of the band from 2018, written by a journalist who seemed particularly unenamoured with Alex Turner’s whole schtick. “Speaking to Turner is always a frustration,” Krissi Murison writes. “For a man rightly hailed as one of the great lyricists of his generation, he is surprisingly useless at verbal communication.”

🚨 We were disappointed by this article in Yorkshire Live, which paints the entire south-east of Sheffield as a “neighbourhood” overrun by antisocial behaviour. “'Blood on the streets', car thefts and open drug dealing,” shouts the headline, followed by a report on a fairly dry meeting of the council’s South East Local Area Committee earlier this month. The article isn’t inaccurate — although the omelette is definitely over-egged — but the framing feels more than a little unhelpful. 

This week’s weather 🌥️

Our weather forecast comes from dedicated Sheffield weather service Steel City Skies, who say this week will get gradually drier and warmer (18°C!) before some less settled conditions at the weekend.

Monday 🌥 A dull morning brightens to a better afternoon with some late sunshine. Keen easterly winds with highs a cool 10°C. Frost overnight.

Tuesday ☀ Dry with lengthy spells of sunshine after a cold start. Easterly winds still keen and cool with highs of 11°C. Frost overnight.

Wednesday 🌤 Lighter winds and, after another hard frost, good spells of pleasant spring sunshine. Dry with highs of 15°C.

Thursday 🌤 Warm and dry with further spells of sunshine, hazy at times. Gentle southeast winds with highs of 18°C.

Friday 🌤 Little change with sunny spells, light winds and dry conditions. Perhaps cloudier later on. Highs of 16°C.

Weekend: Cooler and more showery for the weekend as low pressure to the southwest influences. Still some drier and brighter periods.

To see the full forecast and keep up to date with any changes to the outlook, follow Steel City Skies on Facebook.

Home of the week

A little slice of the 18th century lies tucked modestly behind Ecclesall Road. This former Quarry Manager’s cottage retains original Georgian features whilst integrating contemporary design. It boasts heated tiled floors, bespoke timber windows and a solarium. A good one for fans of orange. It is on the market for £350,000. 

Things to do 

📖On Tuesday, wind down from your day with a night of storytelling at The Fat Cat. The "Yarn Smith of Norwich", Dave Tonge, will be sweeping the audience into an enchanting night made up of folk tales, myths and fables. Doors open at 7pm so grab a drink and escape your way upstairs into a different universe. 

🦆Spend Wednesday evening channelling your inner comedian and join Queer Comedy Sheffield at their monthly QUACKS open mic night. At 7pm in the Showroom Cinema Cafe, prepare for an uncensored, honest and liberating night of laughs. No booking is necessary and pay what you feel, with the bar providing the liquid courage you need to turn you from watcher into performer. 

🎥A film-documentary on the South African photographer, Ernest Cole, is on show at the Showroom Cinema. Cole’s pivotal work unveiled the horrors of apartheid to the rest of the world and the western powers that were complicit. The documentary, inspired by his book House of Bandage, chronicles his work and his eventual exile to America. This harrowing story of oppression and ostracisation told by the Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker, Raoul Peck, will be on screen until Thursday.