In Richmond, Burngreave, and Ecclesall, terraces are on steroids

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

If you’ve been hoping to buy a house any time over the last year or two, it can’t have escaped your attention that prices have been going up, up, up at a (for buyers, at least) slightly alarming rate. We sent our intrepid data reporter Daniel Timms to report on the growing prices, explore who can and who cannot afford a terraced house these days and to delve into which neighbourhoods prices are rocketing fastest in. Finally, if you can think of any other Sheffield topics that might benefit from a Daniel Timms data-delve, do let us know in the comments.

Editor’s note: I think today’s house prices piece is a great example of what I wanted The Tribune to be when we started two years ago: a story that genuinely explains Sheffield to our readers and enhances their understanding of the city. So much of what passes for reporting these days is simply rehashing press releases, but pieces like this one take both time and expertise — and that costs money. If you want to ensure high-quality journalism survives in Sheffield over the long-term, please become a member of The Tribune today. It costs just 23p per day.

Mini briefing

🍔 A row has broken out between a Lib Dem councillor and the council’s most senior public health official over the location of a new Burger King. Greg Fell, the council’s director of public health, says the council’s food strategy would have to be taken into account when deciding whether the new fast food outlet on Fargate got the go ahead. However, Lib Dem councillor Joe Otten says that simply banning the restaurant from opening wouldn’t help. Last month, The Star warned that the collection of fast food outlets at the bottom of Fargate risked the area becoming the “scoffing capital of Yorkshire”, with McDonald’s, Greggs, Wendy’s and German Doner Kebab outlets all within a few metres of each other.

🎱 Excitement is building in Sheffield just two days away from the start of the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre. However, this piece in the Yorkshire Post says the tournament is starting under something of a cloud after two of the world’s best players, both of whom are Chinese, were suspended over match-fixing allegations. The piece reveals that the scandal is threatening to thwart the game’s plans to cash in on the lucrative Far Eastern market.

🏗️ It’s great to see the Sheffielder blog back up and running after a few months without publishing. For those who don’t know, the site focuses on development in Sheffield, both historical and present day. The blog returned at the beginning of April with a fascinating piece about St Matthew’s Church on Carver Street. They have also since covered Pound’s Park, the Bainbridge building, Moorfield flats and Clergy House. If you haven’t saved it already, it’s well worth bookmarking.

Things to do

🗣️ Starting this week is Sheffield’s annual Festival of Debate, the UK’s biggest politics festival. This year’s programme boasts some huge names including musician Brian Eno, journalist Gary Younge and broadcaster Tim Marshall. This weekend will feature an online talk about the role of language in supporting alternative world views, an event at the Heeley Institute about the Sheffield City Goals, and a talk at Union Street with fact checker Will Moy.

🌯 Taking place this Sunday, 16 April between 12pm-4pm is Sharrow Vale Market. The market only takes place three times a year and as always will feature delicious locally produced food from around the area including a wide variety of hot dishes, speciality cakes, breads and preserves plus local crafts, spring plants and cosmetics. Live music will be provided by Break A Leg, The Salvation Army and The Boogie Merchants mobile disco.

🥾 Also on Sunday, join the Kelham Island and Neepsend walking group on a tour of the Porter and Limb valleys. The walk, which costs £7 per person, will start at 10am at the crucible opposite Craft and Dough. From there, the group will catch a bus (fare not included) to Fulwood before walking to Forge Dam, where the tour of the valleys begins. The walk is just over 7.3 miles and participants are advised to bring a packed lunch and plenty of water.

We look at the Sheffield neighbourhoods that have seen the biggest price boom since the pandemic

Scroll to the bottom for our accompanying interactive data story, which delves into the figures in more depth — for paid members only.

A damp cellar. An entrance round the back. Precipitously steep stairs leading to a first floor, split between the main bedroom (road side) and a bathroom and box room (garden side). And an outhouse, in most cases — though not always — converted into a shed.

The Sheffield terrace: familiar, homely, sure. But not traditionally considered “aspirational housing”.

That might be changing.

Following the onset of Covid-19, house prices surged across the UK. Flat-dwellers craved spaces with gardens. The housing market was shut down, while (with little else to spend money on) people stocked up cash for the next purchase. When it reopened, the Government did its bit to stoke up the market, with then Chancellor Rishi Sunak cutting stamp duty altogether on most properties.

The ensuing price boom saw the average Sheffield terrace soar in price, from a pre-Covid value of £145,000 to £170,000 by September 2022 (the most recent data point). At a 17.2% increase, that outpaced both Yorkshire as a whole (11.1%) and England (15.7%).

The pattern for terraces is pretty similar to that for all houses in Sheffield, which have seen a 17.5% increase. But we’re focusing on terraces here as they’re a pretty consistent housing type across the city. This allows us to understand how dynamics vary across Sheffield, and which neighbourhoods are getting the most interest.

How much is a terrace worth?

Although price growth has been strong, these gains weren’t seen equally everywhere across the city. Data shows massively different growth patterns, even in adjacent neighbourhoods.