Has council 'cowardice' killed Ecclesall Road?

Good afternoon readers — and welcome to Thursday’s Tribune.

Ecclesall Road is one of the most famous streets in Sheffield. For decades it’s had a reputation as a place for high-end shops and a haven for independents. But that was then, and this is now. Walk down the street today and there are just as many boarded up shops and for sale signs. How did this happen and what can be done to remedy it? And why did a bold plan aimed at making the road a better place run into such vociferous public opposition? Dan Hayes reports.

Editor’s note: We do lots of different types of stories at The Tribune, from in-depth investigations to fascinating interviews and insightful cultural reviews. Today’s piece is more of a talking point. What’s going wrong on Eccy Road, and why did we abandon plans to improve it? In a world of clickbait, we want The Tribune to be a place where we can have adult discussions about the future of our city. If you think that’s important too, please join today — and join in with the discussion below.

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Has council 'cowardice' killed Ecclesall Road?

Apparently, Ecclesall Road used to be known as the “Golden Mile”. This news may seem surprising to anyone, like me, who is a more recent arrival to the city, but I’m reliably informed that it’s true. The person who provides me this nugget is the shop assistant in Robinson’s Cobblers at 415, one of the oldest stores on the storied street. “It used to be full of rich people walking up and down and coming in their fancy cars,” he continues. “There was even an Aga shop down the road.”

It’s a sign of the times that the Aga store is now the home of the Sheffield Cat Shelter charity shop. Where once the Golden Mile was full of high-end stores, the shop assistant says the Ecclesall Road of 2024 is very different: barbers, nail bars, phone and vape shops, takeaways and charity shops are everywhere. And what was a place where independent shops flourished is now being taken over by big chains. There is even, shock horror, a McDonald’s planned for the former Amaro Lounge at 519. “It’s changed so much,” the shop assistant adds, clearly upset about the decline of the once mighty shopping street. Amid the maelstrom taking place around them, he’s proud that Robinson’s have managed to hold on, but for how long?

I’ve read plenty about the struggles of Ecclesall Road in recent years (there was even a Reddit thread about it earlier this week), but I feel like I need to see it for myself. From the Moore Street roundabout to Psalter Lane, it’s just over a mile and a half long, and yet it occupies an outsized position in the minds of many Sheffielders. In its unique shops, bars and restaurants, we got a glimpse of a better Sheffield. Ecclesall Road — or Eccy Road to those in the know — is a place we can be proud of.

But maybe this should be past tense. The area was already struggling before Covid and the cost of living crisis. But over the last few years, a stream of high-profile closures and chain stores crowding out smaller shops have dented Ecclesall Road’s hard-won reputation as a haven for independents. And just lately, new ideas aimed at reimagining the Golden Mile and reclaiming it for people rather than cars have ended up being seen as the cause of its decline rather than a solution.

Starting at the bottom, it doesn’t take me long to find evidence of what I’m looking for. Opened in January 2019, the Honeycomb restaurant and bar at 259-261 promised “pan-Asian luxury” but only managed to stay in business for just over a year before going into administration. Over the last four years it’s become covered in so much fly posting it could be the backdrop for a post-apocalyptic Hollywood movie. Just a few metres up the road is another shuttered shop, but it’s impossible to see what it once was underneath a mass of flyers.

It’s a similar tale all the way to Hunter’s Bar. All in all about one in every four shops is either closed, for sale, to let, currently being refurbished or in a state of disrepair.