Levelling Up is dead. Let us decide how to spend our own money instead

Good morning readers — and welcome to our Monday briefing.

It was described as a “slap in the face” for Sheffield and South Yorkshire. Last week’s announcement that all but one of the county’s Levelling Up Fund bids have been rejected by the government was met in the region with understandable disappointment, frustration and anger. The competitive way funding is allocated under the scheme has been criticised across the political spectrum. However, moves are afoot that could see our region take more control of its economic destiny — but only if the Treasury can be persuaded to let go of the purse strings.

As well as that, we have a beautiful home in Heeley, a fantastic piece about the rebirth of Sheffield steel, and the return of a legendary musical to the Lyceum.

Catch up and coming up

Thanks to everyone who read and shared our weekend investigation about the crisis facing transgender healthcare in Sheffield. The excellent piece was the Tribune debut of Yasmin Wakefield, a third year journalism student from the University of Sheffield. You can read the story here.

Last week we sent out two great newsletters to our 1,076 paying members. The first was a lovely piece by top Sheffield photographer Berris Conolly who picked out some of his favourite photos from the Regeneration project he was involved in more than 30 years ago. And the second was a piece by our regular contributor David Bocking which looked at the 11 weather records which were broken in 2022. An extract from that first piece is below.

Arriving in late 1988, I was particularly struck by two things about Sheffield — how little traffic there was (even in the rush hour, you could drive across the city centre in a few minutes) and surprisingly, how clean the air was compared to London, although the centuries of earlier pollution were visible everywhere. No doubt there was anxiety at the time about jobs, but being new to the city I was largely unaware of this. On the contrary it seemed quite an exciting, even hopeful time as Sheffield tried to reinvent itself.

This week we’ll send two more, including a great piece by another University of Sheffield student Rachel Flynn about the city’s vibrant jazz scene, and another about what it’s really like to live in the part of Sheffield that Time Out magazine recently named as one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the UK. To help fund a new way of doing journalism in Sheffield focused on local readers rather than shareholders, please consider subscribing using the button below. It costs £1.34 a week if you pay for 12 months up front.

Editor’s note: It was about this time two years ago that I first started thinking about creating The Tribune. If you would have told me back in the dark days of the second Covid lockdown that we’d now have more than 1,000 members and be an important part of the media in Sheffield I’d have been astonished. It’s been quite a ride so far, and there’s a lot more to come, but to get there we need your help. Please join The Tribune as a paying member today. Thank you.

The big picture: The year of the rabbit 🐰

To mark the Lunar New Year, members of the Chinese community in Sheffield performed a traditional lion dance in the city centre on Sunday. Accompanied by drummers, the lion danced from The Moor to West Street, where it performed “cai qing” or “plucking the greens”. According to the Steel City Snapper, this involves the lion picking up an auspicious green lettuce, which is hung with an envelope of cash, and then “spitting” out the leaves to signify the distribution of wealth and prosperity. Thanks to Krystian Pawlowski for this great photo.

This week’s weather ⛅

Our weather forecast comes from dedicated Sheffield weather service Steel City Skies, who say high pressure will be, by and large, in control for much of this week, gradually retrogressing west and ensuring mainly dry weather throughout.

Monday 🌤 A cold and frosty start with lingering fog in places. Then follows a dry and bright day with light winds. Chilly again with highs of 4°C.

Tuesday ⛅ A little milder but still a cold and frosty start likely. Bright again with light winds as our high centres over the UK. Highs of 6°C.

Wednesday 🌥 A few changes as our high continues to move west. It'll allow breezier winds from the northwest with increasing cloud. Highs of 9°C.

Thursday 🌥 A risk of patchy drizzle in any thicker cloud, but skies should brighten with a colder airmass heading south. Highs of 7°C.

Friday ⛅ Potential for frosts to return as polar maritime air influences. Lighter winds than midweek with bright or sunny spells. Highs of 6°C.

Outlook: The weekend sees our high stay just to the southwest, generally close enough to mean fronts to the north and west shouldn't affect us much. Mainly dry with temperatures close to average.

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

The big story: Levelling Up is dead. Let us decide how to spend our own money instead.

Top line: South Yorkshire politicians have reacted angrily after only one of the county’s six Levelling Up bids was successful. Why can’t we choose how to spend the money ourselves?

Background: In the second round of Levelling Up funding unveiled by the government last week, only one South Yorkshire bid was successful — just over £10m for a new outdoor activity park and youth facilities in Barnsley.

• However, two Levelling Up bids from Sheffield City Council were turned down: one for £19m to regenerate the Parkwood Springs area (the former Ski Village) and the other for £17m for new community facilities in Heeley.
• Rotherham's bid for £20 million for Wath and Dinnington was unsuccessful, as was Doncaster’s proposal to regenerate Mexborough and Edlington. A fifth bid to improve South Yorkshire’s bus system was also turned down.

A broken system? In the aftermath of the announcement, much attention has been paid to the way Levelling Up funding is allocated, with councils asked to bid for money rather than cash being allocated on the basis of need. Analysis by the IPPR North thinktank found that Yorkshire and the Humber received a third less than it did in the first tranche of Levelling Up Funding, while London received more than double.

Political reaction: Conservative West Midlands Mayor Andy Street said the “begging bowl culture” was broken while Labour Levelling Up shadow minister Lisa Nandy described the process councils were being asked to go through as a “Hunger Games-style contest”. An investigation published earlier this month by National World found that councils have spent almost £27m on Levelling Up bids so far, most of it paid to external consultants.

The missing billions: Reports suggest that the Conservatives want to rebrand Levelling Up as no one seems to know what it actually means (suggestions have included “stepping up”, “enhancing communities” and, most bafflingly, “gauging up”). But the government’s flagship policy may have more than just an image problem. While £3.8 billion sounds like a lot of money, it is tiny in comparison with the amount that councils have lost over the last 13 years. Since 2010, funding for local councils in England has been cut from £41 billion to £26 billion. Analysis from 2020 said that between 2011 to 2019, Sheffield City Council itself lost £430m.

More devolution? As The Tribune has reported before, politicians across the North are calling for the region to be given more spending powers.

• Just last week, the mayors of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire met in Wakefield to call for more powers over how money for culture is spent in the counties.
• However, a report in the Financial Times recently compared negotiations between combined authorities and the Treasury over new spending powers to “trench warfare”.

Bottom line: With Conservative plans for more mayors and Labour proposals for more powers, there is now a striking degree of unanimity in British politics over the need for more devolution. South Yorkshire’s leaders will make the argument for more spending powers at the Conference of the North in Manchester this week. But the bidding process is ultimately a way of the central government retaining control of the purse strings. The Treasury’s almost complete control over where and how money is spent is the real roadblock to more localism.

Home of the week 🏡

This beautifully presented three-bedroom Heeley semi has sash windows, a range cooker and a courtyard garden to the rear. It is on the market for £275,000.

Tribune Tips: If you want to tell us about a story or give us some information, please email editor@sheffieldtribune.co.uk. We are always happy to speak to people off the record in the first instance, and we will treat your information with confidence and sensitivity. Get in touch.

Our media picks 📺

🚜 The plot continues to thicken at Heeley City Farm, the Sheffield community organisation at the centre of a tug of war over its future direction. Several people who work at the farm have now told Now Then that they were forbidden from applying for funding by new CEO Stuart Gillis earlier this year. They claim that if they had been successful it could have averted the need for multiple redundancies at the farm. Gillis hasn’t responded to requests for comment.

✂️ A superb piece in the Financial Times about the young artisans who are revitalising Sheffield’s steel industry after decade of decline. Quoted in the piece are specialist knife makers in Hackney, Derbyshire and Somerset, all of whom are using Sheffield-made steel in their products. “There’s a consistency that we can’t quite match with steels from elsewhere,” says Derbyshire knife-maker Ben Edmonds. Beautiful shots accompanying the piece as well.

🏰 In case you missed it, BBC2 was in Sheffield yesterday for a programme about Sheffield Castle. Digging for Britain presenter Dr Cat Jarman spoke to specialists from Wessex Archaeology about the boreholes that were recently sunk at the 900-year-old site. As a result of their investigations they have now discovered more about the castle’s moat — which they now know was a massive five metres wide and eight metres deep! Fast forward to 44 minutes for the Sheffield bit.

Things to do 📆

Theatre 🎭 Richard O’Brien’s legendary rock ‘n’ roll musical The Rocky Horror Show has come to Sheffield on tour, having been seen by over 30 million theatregoers. For the uninitiated, the musical tells the story of two squeaky clean college kids whose car breaks down outside a creepy mansion where they are introduced to the  charismatic Dr Frank’n’Furter. The show begins tonight (Monday, 23 January) and runs until Saturday 28. Tickets are priced £15-£55.

Art 🖼 A fascinating-sounding exhibition begins today at University of Sheffield’s Western Bank Library. The Power of Creativeness tells the story of Irene Champernowne, a leading psychotherapist who pioneered the use of art therapy to improve mental health. The free exhibition tells both her story and that of those who supported and influenced her, including Carl Jung, as well as focusing on the ongoing legacy of her work through current creativity.

Music 🥁 On Thursday 26 January, Sheffield-based drummer Sarah Heneghan brings her one woman show to Sidney and Matilda in the city centre. Power Out is a continuous set of live drums, electronics and lights which creates a “whirling atmosphere of beats”. Heneghan’s improvised live drumming is contrasted with a backdrop of pumping dance music, subverting our expectations of what jazz percussion can be. Tickets are priced £11.25 and doors open at £7.30pm.

Next stop, London 🎭

Saturday night saw the final performance in this run of Standing at the Sky’s Edge at the Crucible. The production’s second much-delayed Sheffield run has played to sold out crowds for the last six weeks and received dozens of five-star reviews (for those who missed it, here is ours). The cast will now travel to London to perform the show at the National Theatre. We’re sure London audiences will love it — but whether they’ll get all the Sheffield humour remains to be seen!