Fear and loathing in S11

Good afternoon — and welcome to Thursday’s Tribune.

Community tensions in Sheffield are thankfully quite rare. But the flipside of that is that when something does happen it’s very noticeable. Last night, The Tribune attended a hastily arranged community meeting at Lost and Found on Ecclesall Road to discuss a spate of crime and anti-social behaviour that has been taking place on the normally quiet streets of S11. The issue had been brewing for around a year, but had got significantly worse over the last few months. During the meeting, officials from the council and police heard at first hand how angry people were over what had happened in their community. But what was really behind it? Dan Hayes reports.

Editor’s note: I think articles like this one prove how important journalism is. A story about how comments on Facebook groups can quickly grow into vigilantism hammers home just how crucial trusted sources of information are. But reporting like this takes time and costs money. While we love all our 23,000 subscribers, we love the ones who fund our work just that little bit more. If you value what we do, and want to read today’s important story about community tensions on Ecclesall Road in full, please click the button above and become a paying member today.

World class music in intimate venues for Sheffield Chamber Music Festival's 40^th birthday

From today's sponsor: For their 40^th anniversary festival, Music in the Round has enlisted guest curator Steven Isserlis, "one of the greatest cellists of all time" (Classic FM) to craft nine days of concerts featuring music from Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and more. Some of this year's highlights include a unique night of Saint-Saëns music — which features a screening of the very first film to have a specially commissioned score (details) — and an evening of French music with Roderick Williams (singer soloist at King Charles III's Coronation) for a night in Paris featuring music by Fauré and Poulenc (details). 

The festival is an incredible opportunity to see world-class musicians right here in Sheffield — don't miss out. To see the full programme and book tickets, click here.

Your Tribune briefing

🪧 The University of Sheffield's vice chancellor Koen Lamberts was forced to leave the Sheffield Education Awards after a pro-Palestinian demonstration, The Tab report. A group carrying flags and banners stormed the stage, calling for the university to “cut ties with the arms trade” as well as Israeli universities. As members of university staff joined the protestors on stage, Mr Lamberts was escorted from the room and security told attendees that the event was cancelled.

🏗️ Plans have been lodged with Sheffield City Council that would see 102 new homes built on the site of the Old Coroner’s Court on Nursery Street. The 10-storey building would include both studios and flats, a co-working space, resident terraces, secure cycle spaces, plant rooms, and refuse facilities. Attempts by the Victorian Society to save the 1913 building took place five years ago but it has since deteriorated even further. A decision on the proposal will be made in July.

🧗 Part of Park Hill flats could be turned into a giant climbing wall if a new event this autumn gets the go ahead. Climbing at the Sky’s Edge on September 9-15 this year would see dozens of climbing blocks fixed to the side of one part of the building, creating a set of different routes for climbers to attempt. As well as expert climbers, there will also be an opportunity for residents and others to have a go too, so you can expect to see Dan trying his hand at this later this year.

Things to do

🌱 Woolley Wood in Wincobank is an ancient woodland that hosts a spectacular display of bluebells every spring. On Saturday, join Sheffield Woodland Connections on a guided walk around the wood to find the best displays as well as some of the other wildflowers and trees which call Woolley Wood home. The 90 minute walk begins at 3pm and costs £8 (children go free). Meet at the small car park just off Ecclesfield Road, five minutes before the start time.

🍿 On Saturday at Victoria Hall, the Hallam Sinfonia goes to the movies with a concert of great film scores as well as orchestral pieces which has been used in movies. Pieces to be played on the night will include a Jurassic Park Suite and a Star Wars Suite by John Williams, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, a James Bond Suite by John Barry, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni. Tickets are priced £4-£12 and doors open at 7.30pm

✊ Find out more about Sheffield’s 200 years of radical history on this political history walk around the city centre. On the tour you’ll see the shop where suffragettes planned a campaign of direct action to win the vote, find out which pub held huge Chartist meetings, and meet some of the characters from strikes and struggles which still inspire today. Tickets are £5-15 and the tour begins at Sheffield Town Hall at 12 noon. Another will begin at the same place at 3pm.

Fear and loathing in S11

“S11 is verging on lynch mob territory. It’s very messy.”

This was the message that dropped in the Tribune’s inbox last Thursday, just as Sheffield was going to the polls for this year’s local elections. While community tensions do occasionally flare here, S11 usually isn’t the postcode where they happen. Ecclesall was ground zero for the tree protests, and there has been a spirited debate about bus lanes and parking policy in recent years, but angry mobs? In my experience, those aren't typical of the area.

According to an eyewitness, last Wednesday a group of around 30 boys, all apparently teenagers from the local area, marched up Ecclesall Road from Endcliffe Park towards a house opposite the Eccy’s takeaway at 776. There the boys were met with a barrage of abuse, stones and bricks from the family inside. Unsurprisingly, given the scale of the incident, it wasn’t long before police arrived. Photos shared on Facebook were quickly deleted. According to another witness, the family who were living in the house left the following day.

As ever, social media raised more questions than it provided answers. I wanted to know why such a surprising incident happened in the relatively quiet atmosphere of S11. What I heard were stories of violence that led a group of children to turn vigilante, effectively chasing a troubled yet vulnerable family from their home. 

After speaking extensively to people in the area this week, none of whom wanted to be named in this story, a story emerges. The police weren’t able to give me any information about the family because of data protection and safeguarding, but I feel reasonably confident about this version of events. Around this time last year, a family moved into a house on Ecclesall Road, not far from the Hunter’s Bar roundabout. The house is a council property, and had never attracted much attention before. The family was large: a mum and nine children, ranging in ages from 15 to just a few months old. Since they arrived, residents and shopkeepers in the area have reported the family’s children (all apart from the youngest) causing problems. Initially this was fairly low level anti-social behaviour, like littering and noise. However, more recently, there have been allegations of more serious crimes being committed, including assault and robbery.

This situation came to a head last week with the march on the house, which prompted the “lynch mob” message we received. Later the same day, news of the incident was reported in The Star along with some context of what had caused it. The report spoke of a community “living in fear” and of intimidation and demands for money. Seven separate schools sent letters to parents advising them to speak to their children about personal safety. One school even advised their children to remain in larger groups and stay in well-lit, open and populated areas of Endcliffe Park, all just a few days before the busy bank holiday weekend. In the end, it never came to that — the family were moved by the council last week.

On Ecclesall Road on Tuesday, it doesn’t take long to find someone to talk about what had been going on. One local shopkeeper tells me she first noticed the family around a year ago, initially due to their leaving litter in places and causing trouble in the area’s shops. However, she says that the problems escalated into violence and robbery when the nights started to get darker last winter.

“It didn’t have to get to this stage,” she says. “If the police had intervened when it was just anti-social behaviour it would have been nipped in the bud and it would not have come to this.” She says what happened last week was the local boys “taking a stand” and “reclaiming the streets”: “It comes to something when children feel they have got to take action,” she adds. “But this was a direct result of inaction in the first place.”