Sheffield: Residents Against Station Closure

Residents Against Station Closure are a pressure group uniting a wide range of groups, individuals, organisations and communities, in a campaign to stop East Midlands Trains installing barriers at Sheffield Station. Ticket barriers will prevent many people walking through the station to gain access to the city centre or the tram stop which is at the back of the station. They have just announced plans to meet next Monday…

The Planning Board are going to meet on Monday November 23rd at 2pm to make a decision regarding East Midlands Trains proposal to install barriers at the station and block our access to the bridge. We will be meeting outside the Town Hall at 1.15pm to lobby the councillors as they go in. Please bring banners and anything that will make a loud noise!

There will be speeches outside from some of the different organisations that have objected. At 2pm we will be going inside to listen to the debate and support the people making our case. Please come and join us. Hope to see you there.

More details can be found on their website; please offer your support in any way you can.

Sheffield: Save Pisgah House & Botanic Gardens!

Friends in Sheffield have reported the following…

Pisgah House is a Grade II listed (will be saved see 09/03207/CAC) residence constructed in the 1820’s, tucked away in a quiet backwater (Pisgah House Road) at the top end of Hoole Rd. It is next door to the Etruria House Hotel, which is also a listed building. Pisgah House has a fine 2-story coach house which is itself a listed building.

To the rear garden of Pisgah House is part of the Botanic Garden on the Tapton Experimental Gardens site. It houses a significant portion of the plant collection. When the Tapton site is redeveloped, whatever public open space remains on the site will adjoin Pisgah House’s garden.

This New aplication will see The Demolition of existing student halls of residence, annex, associated building including temporary structures around experimental gardens and Nos. 26, 28 & 30 Taptonville Road.

What is it?

Founded in 1951, The  Botanic Garden contains more than 2000 species of plants and has provided an experimental centre for Sheffield University’s department of plant sciences. The garden is established in grounds that form part of the historic landscape around Hallamgate House (built circa 1780, now demolished), Tapton Elms (now renamed Hadow House) and Pisgah House (the oldest listed residence still standing in Broomhill). The garden contains a number of built structures including a ha-ha, a Victorian walled ornamental garden and a pond, in addition to many fine mature trees. The University want to sell the site to developers who plan to demolish many of the existing structures and build a housing estate, along with a larger development on the site of the Tapton Halls of Residence on the adjoining land.

Where is it?

Main entrance is at number 26 Taptonville Road, towards the top end of Taptonville Road, but the garden also has a second entrance from Hoole Road to the rear. The total land area of the garden is around 1 hectare (2.5 acres). Few people in the community know about it because it has rarely been open to the public.

Why save it?

It occupies such a sensitive site in the heart of our conservation area, and has importance as part of the historic landscape pre-dating (and contemporary with) the development of Broomhill;

It provides amenity for the surrounding houses, and an important habitat for birds, bats, rare newts and other wildlife, in addition to its unique plant collection;

Broomhill is desperately short of public green space and the loss of such a good potential public garden in the centre of our community would be a tragic missed opportunity;

Broomhill has suffered many detrimental changes to our local environment as a result of University expansion: surely the University could give something back by working with the community to conserve this garden?

The land in question was originally the garden of Tapton Elms, a fine house now owned by the University of Sheffield that was built by Alderman John Hobson and his wife Thyrza in 1853.  Alderman Hobson and his wife had several children.  Their  second child, called Albert, who continued to live at Tapton Elms after his parents died, was awarded a knighthood around the turn of the century.  He also served as Lord Mayor, Master Cutler and president of the Chamber of Commerce nationally and locally, and sat on the council of Sheffield University.

The general lay-out of the ‘Secret Garden’, as it is known , from old maps.  There was an informal lawned area immediately in front of the house and a formal walled garden beyond that.  Many of the original features of the walled garden still remain. The residents of Broomhall proposal, which was supported by the 1750 people who signed a petition, is to re-create the original gardens and open them as a small public park?.

This would showcase the time when Sheffield was becoming one of the industrial powerhouses of the world and some of the foundations for the city we have today were laid.  Among the legacies of that time are the houses and gardens built by successful businessmen (in the days before Ferraris and helicopters), at least partly to show off their wealth.  Re-creating the gardens The residents of Broomhall propose would place Tapton Elms once again in its original garden setting.  It is proposed that the house itself should be converted into apartments, and The residents of Broomhall have no objection to that.

John Hobson, who might he be then?

John Hobson was in fact responsible for the development of much of Taptonville Road, where these gardens are situated, and it was the view up the road that prompted John Betjeman to describe Broomhill as ‘the prettiest suburb in England’ back in the 1960s.

Another reason for the proposal is that Broomhill is identified in the current Unitary Development Plan as being extremely short of public open space.  Restoring the gardens of Tapton Elms would also address that problem to some extent.  We see no other opportunity to do so, given that Broomhill is so densely developed now and almost all land of any size is also owned by the University.

The residants of Broomhall have no general objection to the proposed development on the northern part of the site accessed from Crookes Road.  There are concerns from local residents about privacy and over-looking, but The residents of Broomhall generally welcome the redevelopment of Tapton Hall of Residence.

However, they disagree very strongly with almost every aspect of the planning officer’s report where it deals with the southern part of the site, known as the experimental gardens.  It ignores or dismisses without proper justification important planning reasons why this part of the site should not be developed.

More on The Proposed: Demolition.
Application Reference: 09/03207/CAC
Address of Proposal: Land At Crookes Road And Taptonville Road

Site Of
Tapton Hall Of Residence also
30, 38 And 46 Taptonville Road
Sheffield

Proposed: Demolition of existing student halls of residence, annex, associated building including temporary structures around experimental gardens Nos. 26, 28 & 30 Taptonville Road

Case Officer: Trevor Sullivan

Miller Homes

http://millerhomes.co.uk

Escafeld Estates Ltd

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/foi/companies/escafeld.html
Finance Department Firth Court
Western Bank
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
S10 2TN

The Applicant is using an Agent to handle their case.
DLP Planning Ltd

http://www.pro-sheffield.co.uk
Agent’s Name: Mr R Bolton
Agent’s Address: 11 Paradise Square
Sheffield
S1 2DE

Reclaim, reclaim, the 5th of November

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…

For people who don’t know York was the birth place of Guy Fawkes and attended St Peters school in York along with John and Christopher Wright; both of whom would be among the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot.
Now what better city would there be for celebrating the Gunpowder Plot than York? Well not if your in York, the City council do not organise any bonfire spectacular or any lesser event to mark the day King James 1st nearly met his maker with a rocket up his ass.
It time to reclaim the 5th of November for Guy Fawkes and pressure the council into holding a celebration in York. I opt for the  Knavesmire where the site of the city gallows was and where Dick Turpin breathed his last.

We should embarrass the council into organising an event for 2010, you can email the york city council here ycc@york.gov.uk and ask them why they dont celebrate one of Yorks finest sons.

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…

No to Welfare Abolition: national planning meeting

Manchester University Students Union,

Steve Biko Building,

Oxford Road, Manchester,

M13 9PR,

rooms MR1 and MR2

Saturday 14th November

Arrive 11.30am for 12 noon start. Finish 5.30pm.

 

* The aims: stop the implementation of the welfare reform (abolition) bill; build a network of solidarity between claimants; create links between unemployed workers and workers in the PCS

* The day: 1. Share information 2. Plan a national action 3. Build a strategy and work out how we can co-ordinate nationally

 

The Welfare Reform Bill is a massive attack on the disabled, single parents, unemployed workers and workers in the Department for Work and Pensions and we cannot allow it to be implemented.

14^th November is our chance for welfare and disability rights activists, members of unemployed workers’ groups and trade unionists to get to together, build links of solidarity and plan our struggle. If you are organising against welfare abolition or want to start doing so, please make sure people from your group come along!

We say to the government and the bosses, we do not exist for your benefit!

Free lunch will be provided.

Let us know you are coming by emailing hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com.

Contact rebecca.galbraith@yahoo.co.uk if you want to use the free creche.

Contact hackneyunemployedworkers@gmail.com if you need transport from London.

Join the email discussion list here: http://groups.google.com/group/no-to-welfare-abolition

 

Not Just Pie in the Sky – Why Anarchists Should Help ‘Reclaim the Earth Centre!’

We’re bunched together eating a delicious home-made apple pie surrounded by some of the most cutting edge sustainable technology anywhere in Europe. The apples are windfalls which, if the local Doncaster bureaucrats had their way, would be left to rot along with the millions of pounds worth of incredible buildings and technology which make up the now abandoned ‘Earth Centre’.

Originally conceived in 1989 as a response to the World Commission on Environment and Development’s call for ‘vast campaigns of education, debate and public participation’ concerning sustainable development, the Earth Centre began to take shape on the site of the old Denaby Main/Cadeby collieries during the 1990s. Initially there was immense local interest and a lot of people from nearby Conisbrough and Denaby were building their own small-scale projects on the site – at one time we thought that we might have our very own Centre for Alternative Technology. Unfortunately – as the money started to roll in – the idea behind the Earth Centre went from ‘an exhibition of sustainable development practices and an international centre for related research and education’ to being a rather crappy theme park.

Following what the Guardian called “a roller coaster ride of false starts, wild hopes and dashed plans.” (and what locals called “cock ups”) the Earth Centre closed it’s doors for the last time in 2004.This wasn’t a surprise for Doncaster residents. The Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council (DMBC) is like any other bureaucracy; when your give a bunch of people a large sum of other people’s money and allow them to spend it without any form of accountability the inevitable consequence is RMS – Reverse Midas Syndrome. In other words everything they touch turns to shit! The bureaucrats milked the scheme for all it was worth and then abandoned it, even though visitor numbers were increasing throughout the last year that it was open.

The site is presently being used by a wargames company (ex-military teaching corporate types how to be ‘real men’) and as a film set for ITV’s post apocalypse TV series, ‘Survivors’. Not ideal uses for a facility which has ultra-quiet wind turbines, a solar canopy, advanced ‘living machine’ biological sanitation and water purification systems, immense underground galleries, extensive allotments, forest gardens and fishing lakes, and a dormitory to sleep over 100 people.

But back to the apple pie – did I mention that it was delicious?

While chatting we realised that we were quite a diverse bunch (more of that in moment) and that saving the Earth Centre is an important project for anarchists of every persuasion. There are the obvious environmental connotations surrounding one of the most ecologically sustainable developments in the world. But this is also a real opportunity to create something positive in the heart of one of England’s most economically deprived regions. Like most of Doncaster’s ex-mining towns the local community has been decimated; first by the miner’s strike, then by the subsequent pit closures and years of economic decline – here of course they had the added pressure of being shafted by the bureaucrats who were responsible for killing off the Earth Centre project.  The Pixies who set Reclaim the Earth Centre! in motion have worked closely with the residents of Conisbrough and Denaby and have received almost 100% support locally; the only negative response was from a guy who said ‘it was a nice idea, but it would never happen’ – it’s up to you to prove him wrong!

The Earth Centre is next to Conisbrough train station which is on a direct rail line between Doncaster and Sheffield; it’s easily accessible for anarchists (and anyone else…) from all over Yorkshire (and beyond). Being an ex-industrial site its easy to reach by road too – if you’re into that kind of thing . The group meets at 1:30pm every Sunday – come along and get a free welcome hug!

As I’ve already mentioned we pie-eaters were a diverse bunch; there were eco types, class war types, syndicalist types, anarchism-without-anachronisms types,  a social-lifestylist (me) and even a bloke that managed to stop a police charge during the Wapping dispute armed only with a big bag of marbles! But one problem we all shared is that we were from areas of Yorkshire – smaller towns and less politically active cities – which lacked organisation and numbers. The conversation – somewhat mumbled thanks to mouthfuls of pie – quickly turned to the need for a Yorkshire anarchist support network, and so the Yorkshire Anarchist Group (YAG) was born. We decided to hit the ground running and build this blog as our first project. Over the next few days we’ll be trying to contact as many Yorkshire anarchist groups and individuals as possible (if you could contact us first it would be even better for our workload ) and in the coming months we will be working on newsletters, pooling resources and planning a launch party for sometime in 2010. Please let us know if you can help in any way.

If you would like a guided visit of the Earth Centre at any other time please email Molly Mosschops on thereismore2lifefolks [at] yahoo.co.uk

If you’d like to know more about the YAG leave a comment or email yorkshire.anarchist [at] gmail.com