Should we buy the Old Town Hall?

Good afternoon readers — and welcome to our Monday briefing.

It’s one of the grandest buildings in Sheffield, but it’s in a sorry state. Up until the mid-1990s, the Old Town Hall on Waingate was still functioning as the city’s Crown Court, but has had a series of delinquent owners ever since. The latest, Gary Ata, has found himself in trouble with the authorities repeatedly over the last few years and earlier this month was fined almost £100,000 over the “serious and deliberate” failure to manage another of his properties in Sheffield. Now, a friends group say that if no planning application is forthcoming, the council would have a strong case to impose a compulsory purchase order. That’s our big story today.

As well as that, we have a stunning photo from the Parkwood Springs Lantern Festival, and a beautiful home in Hillsborough.

Catch up

For our weekend read, top Sheffield music and culture writer Daniel Dylan Wray looked at how Warp Records and the Design Republic have influenced the aesthetics of electronic music. The piece was a hit with our readers. “Really nice read,” wrote one. “You can see that same 'Sheffield' spirit with a lot of creatives here today, there's just something about this city.”

Meanwhile the debate continues to rage in the comments on Vicky’s story last week about Newfield School. “If I’d been sent to a school like Mercia not only would I have left a straight A student I would have left with some discipline and focus,” said one rueful reader. But another was worried about the level of control teachers might have in an “ultra strict” environment, saying: “after my experience being bullied by certain teachers at school I would never just trust teachers were right blindly.”

Do you think the spread of the Mercia model in Sheffield’s schools is a good thing? Read the piece and have your say here.

Editor’s note: That debate in the comments is what we love to see at The Tribune — people thrashing out the city’s big issues with strong opinions, respectfully expressed. It’s exciting to see the community we’re building: people who love this city and have interesting takes on what it needs. We’ve got an expert piece from the Centre for Cities coming out tomorrow about the role of manufacturing here in Sheffield — to read that, and join the comments, hit the button below.

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The big picture: Light fantastic 🏮

More than 1,000 people attended the annual Parkwood Springs Lantern Festival on Saturday. The festival, which has been running at the much-loved beauty spot since 2007, saw dozens of brightly coloured homemade lanterns and two samba bands parade through the woods to the viewing platform which overlooks the city. The huge kestrel lantern pictured above by Sheffield snapper Tim Dennell was designed and created by Patrick Amber, Jo Veal and local residents.

The big story: Should we buy the Old Town Hall?

Top line: The owner of the Old Town Hall — one of Sheffield’s most important heritage buildings — has been hit with yet another huge fine for failing to properly manage the hundreds of flats he owns in the city. With no planning application for the 216-year-old building in sight, when will the council bite the bullet and force a compulsory purchase?

Built in 1808, the Old Town Hall is one of Sheffield’s oldest surviving buildings. The Waingate building once served as the town’s administrative hub, its courts and its police station, and it continued to serve as the city’s main crown court until the mid-1990s. Since then it has had a series of owners, none of whom have done much with the building. As a result, it has deteriorated significantly with broken windows, leaks, and even entire floors missing.

• The Friends of the Old Town Hall was set up in 2014 to campaign for the building to be protected. They had a plan to work with the council on a compulsory purchase but this fell through when local entrepreneur Efe Omu bought the building in 2019.
• He had big plans for the buildings including a 12-room hotel in the cells and a “middle eastern style souk market” on the ground floor — but his company went bust during the pandemic. The building was sold by the receivers to current owner Gunes “Gary” Ata.

Noble intentions? Gary Ata runs Telford-based property company Noble Design and Build, which owns around 500 flats or rooms in Sheffield and around 5,000 across the country. But Mr Ata’s company has found itself regularly in trouble with the authorities. In 2020, they were fined £1,000 for obstructing fire inspectors while in 2018 they were fined £4,500 for processing CCTV data without registering with the data protection watchdog. In January 2021, Mr Ata was also ordered to pay £10,000 to a former staff member for unfair dismissal.

Ata at it again: Then, last year Mr Ata was prosecuted for the second time in less than a year over failing to provide information to tenants, and investors in Kelham Works won a three-year-long legal battle to manage the building themselves after taking Mr Ata to a property tribunal.

And earlier this month, he was fined almost £100,000 over the “serious and deliberate” failure to manage a block of flats, St Mary’s House on London Road. A piece in The Star said the council reported issues including maintenance, repairs, fire and general safety.

“Cowboy”: The council say they are considering imposing a Section 215 notice to make Mr Ata look after the building better, but Valerie Bayliss from the Friends of the Old Town Hall argues that leaving such an important building to a “cowboy” would be folly. They were told to expect a planning application for the demolition of the 1955 wing and its replacement with a 16-storey residential building, but in the two years since he bought it there is still no sign of any progress.

Bayliss said the Friends of the Old Town Hall commissioned a study in 2020 that found the building would cost around £15 million to restore, which she estimates will probably now have doubled due to the building’s further deterioration and increasing building costs. Nevertheless, she told The Tribune that a compulsory purchase order is now the only real solution. She said:

I think the council would have a very good case for a compulsory purchase if there was no sign of a planning application in the next few months. However, they would be very reluctant to pay half a million for it and then have it on their hands. If that’s the case they would have to think of innovative ways of restoring it, like partnering with a charity or non-profit that would be able to access grant funding... But that would be a 10-year process.

Bottom line: As well as being a building of great heritage value, the Old Town Hall is also the key to the Castlegate area. As the new park takes shape on the former castle site, having such a magnificent building slowly crumbling just over the road will become increasingly unsustainable. The Old Town Hall needs to be restored sensitively but it’s clear that Gary Ata isn’t the man for the job. The council should bite the bullet and buy the building before it deteriorates any further.

Further reading:

• Sheffield’s Old Town Hall changes hands again
• The Old Town Hall has had some terrible owners. Is Gary Ata the worst?

The weekly Whitworth ✏️

Cartoonist James Whitworth with his take on Mercia Learning Trust’s divisive behaviour policies.

This week’s weather 🌦️

Our weather forecast comes from dedicated Sheffield weather service Steel City Skies, who say there will be plenty of fine autumn weather this week, though breezy from the southwest at times. Rain mainly restricted to nights.

Monday ⛅ Bright and still rather windy from the southwest with isolated showers and good sunny spells. Highs of 15°C.

Tuesday ⛅ Early showers soon clear to a dry and fine day with sunny spells and lighter winds from the southwest. Highs of 16°C.

Wednesday ⛅ Continuing fine with dry conditions and bright or sunny spells. Southwest winds mostly light. Mild with highs of 15°C.

Thursday ⛅ Breezier from the south but mainly dry for most with some sunshine. Rain likely from the west overnight, clearing to showers. Highs of 15°C.

Friday 🌦 Bright and breezy from the southwest with a few rogue showers still around. A good deal of fine weather too, with highs of 14°C.

Outlook: Low pressure to the north and high pressure to the south for next weekend. Bright spells, breezy winds and a few showers at times.

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

Coming up

This week, our paying members will receive two extra editions of The Tribune. In the first, the Centre for Cities will run the rule over Sheffield’s manufacturing industries as the city struggles to find a future after steel. And in the second, Victoria has done some digging into the murky industry of “exempt housing” — and a provider that has grown to dominate the Sheffield market in just a few short years. If you’d like to read those pieces (and why wouldn’t you?) please join the growing Tribune tribe today.

Our media picks 🔗

Scary, dangerous and bad for your weekends: Going undercover with the far-right 🔎 Long-time readers will remember Tribune pieces from a few years ago written by Harry Shukman, such as this one about the “monstering” of migrant hotels. Over the last year and a half Harry has been undercover with the far-right, and has written for anti-fascist organisation HOPE not hate about his experiences. At the weekend, our sister title the Manchester Mill spoke to Harry about his investigation — and a documentary about his year undercover will also air at 10pm on Channel 4 tonight.

‘Lady Gaga went to our chippy’: how Yorkshire became a cultural powerhouse 🎭 The Guardian is very excited to discover there’s culture going on in this half of England and is keen to understand how this could have happened. After helpfully informing its readers that Yorkshire is not “all cobbled streets and whippets” in the opening sentence, this article points to deliberate cultural investment from local mayors like Oliver Coppard, the instructive example set by bands like the Arctic Monkeys and, perhaps, the proximity of curious northern towns. “The way big cities such as Sheffield and Leeds interact with historic places like York, fancy market towns like Harrogate or the tiny rural enclaves, is the magical fertiliser pouring on to Yorkshire culture,” says Chris Bush, creator of Standing at the Sky’s Edge. (Unfortunately for this piece’s argument, she currently lives in London.)

Boohoo boss steps down as group contemplates break-up 📉 Fashion ecommerce group Boohoo, once valued at almost £4 billion, is “facing a reckoning,” according to The Times. The group own a huge distribution centre in Tinsley that once employed thousands — although this number has significantly reduced after investment in automation — so its uncertain future is a worrying sign for the local economy. Over the last five years, its share price has fallen by almost 90%, suggesting the “Boohoo bubble” may have burst. We also wrote about the warehouse in 2021 here.

The mates who have met for a pint every Thursday for 56 years 🍻 This lovely story celebrates a group of local men in their early eighties, who have an unbroken streak of weekly pub visits longer than most people’s marriages. (They attended “Zoom pub” every week in lockdown.) The BBC met them at the White Swan in Greenhill and notes that they alternate between pubs in Sheffield and Rotherham, to accommodate members that have moved out of the city. "It’s very, very rare we miss a Thursday," retired electrical engineer Peter says with pride. "Sometimes we’re all on holiday and we can't manage it. We might be down to three of us if it gets really desperate.” Someone get these men a joint CBE for services to pints!

Home of the week 🏡

As property prices skyrocket in other parts of the city, hitherto unfashionable Hillsborough is currently a suburb on the up. This three bedroomed terrace off the Middlewood Road is just a few minutes from the park and has been beautifully modernised by the current owner. The only drawback? A plastic grass garden (maybe you could re-turf it?). It is on the market for £300,000.

Tribune tips: If you want to tell us about a story or give us some information, please get in touch with us by emailing editor@sheffieldtribune.co.uk. We are happy to speak to people off the record, and we guarantee we will treat your information with confidence and sensitivity.

Things to do 📆

Walk 🌿 Tomorrow lunch time, from 1-2pm, Sheffield Botanical Gardens are offering a free guided tour — no need to book your place. This month’s tour is a Halloween special, exploring “poisonous and magical plants” in the gardens. Attendees should meet by the entrance to the Dorothy Fox Education Centre, at the top of the slope from the Thompson Road Gates off Ecclesall Road. The tour is completely free but a donation of £3 is strongly encouraged.

Learn 🏭 Also tomorrow, Sheffield Museums’ community curator Cheryl Bowen and curator of industry and metalwork Emma Paragreen will talk about the development of the displays at Kelham Island Museum. On the tour they will also talk about their ongoing work to celebrate more diverse stories and voices in the museum, including exploring the issues of decolonisation and examining Sheffield’s wider global connections. The free 45-minute tour begins at 1pm.

Theatre 🎭 From Tuesday until Saturday this week, the Lyceum Theatre presents Art, a comedy starring Seann Walsh, Chris Harper and Aden Gillett. The story begins with the purchase of an all-white painting but “quickly descends into a riotous exploration of the blurred lines between art and reality”. Art has previously won Best Comedy at the Olivier Awards, Tony Awards and Moliere Awards. Tickets are priced from £15 to £45 — buy them here.

Thanks to the FT for sponsoring today’s edition — get your discounted subscription now.