Our Proposal

We’re Friends of Skyeline Pocket Park, a group of residents from Park Hill and the streets surrounding the South Street Amphitheatre who are fed up with the serious and persistent anti-social behaviour that blights the small patch of land at the top of South Street. But instead of just complaining about it, we’ve come up with a solution.

For those of us who live in the area immediately surrounding the top of South Street, nightly incidents of anti-social behaviour have dogged our lives for more than a decade. Every night, dozens of people in cars gather around the small triangle of roadway that is not overlooked by any properties, directly above the Amphitheatre. Here they play loud music at a nuisance volume, drop litter from takeaways, block access to South Street by obstructing the roadway, deal drugs, and use drugs – as evidenced by the dozens of nitrous oxide canisters that collect on South Street every week.

But the problem is more serious than that. There have been multiple reports from different women who walk through the area at night, or who challenge the people in the cars over noise nuisance, of being threatened with rape or other forms of sexual assault. Men who have challenged the cars’ drivers have been threatened with sexual violence against their wives, partners and daughters. This obviously makes the area a complete no-go zone for women walking alone at night – and many of us feel that if something isn’t done soon, something much worse could happen.

For more than ten years, nearby residents, including those at Park Hill, have held numerous public meetings as well as private meetings with the police to try and get this problem sorted out and to improve women’s safety in the area. Occasional enhanced patrols by the police have had some success, but this has been short-lived, and when these end the number of cars gathering in the space at night shoots back up again. A CCTV camera installed at the site has had no effect. After a decade, we’re no further on with this problem than we were at the start. It’s time to try something different.

Our great city deserves better

Image courtesy Jane Smith Illustration

The view of Sheffield from above the Amphitheatre is iconic – perhaps the most famous skyline in Yorkshire. During the day, hundreds of people climb the Steel Steps up from the station to see the city laid out before them. But what they currently find at the top does this breathtaking view a disservice. A tatty triangle of unloved roadway – one side of it now redundant – filled with weeds, litter and drug paraphernalia discarded from the cars that descend on the area every night.

THE VISION

Building on the huge success of council-led ‘pocket parks’ at Matilda Street and Nursery Street, we’ve developed a vision for Sheffield’s newest: Skyeline Pocket Park. Named with a cheeky nod to the nearby Skye Edge and the smash musical it inspired, Skyeline Pocket Park will be a beautiful, high-quality public space that will create new opportunities for exercise, active travel and leisure while simultaneously tackling or even eliminating the serious anti-social behaviour that blights this site.

Inspired by and building on the success of Grey to Green (Image: Google Maps)

Presenting Sheffield’s newest beautiful green space—

Our vision would see the redundant stretch of roadway closest to the Amphitheatre closed to cars entirely, either to drive over or to park on. This will drastically cut the space available for cars to park at night, as well as reducing the number of potential ‘escape routes’, making the area unattractive to those who currently congregate there.

One side of the triangle can then be converted into a new high-quality walking and wheeling route between South Street and Shrewsbury Road. The new park would also allow the ugly crash barriers that run along the top of the Amphitheatre to be removed, zopening up this beautiful view for even more people. Benches would be installed where there were previously parked cars, allowing those with limited mobility to take in the breathtaking view.

Closing off one side of the triangle will allow the currently unloved grassy space in the middle to be converted into a new activity and play area for both children and adults.

There is currently a chronic lack of facilities or space for children to play in the neighbourhood, and no play spaces are proposed in either of the upcoming phases of the Park Hill redevelopment. This has a deleterious effect on both the physical and mental wellbeing of our children. To address this, high-quality play equipment such as slides and swings will be installed with a view out over the city, while a row of trees along the back of the site will both enclose and define the space, keeping it safe and segregated from traffic and framing the iconic view. Reclaiming part of the redundant roadway for people will also allow new and innovative uses of the space – this could include coffee vendors, food stalls, or even local events, festivals and celebrations, that will benefit residents’ wellbeing as well as boosting the local economy.

Single (two-way Junction)
Pocket Park (play)
Pedestrian/cycle route with benches
Artwork or coffee cart location
Line of native trees
Traffic control measures
Raised Planter and vehicle protection

As an additional benefit, closing a redundant section of roadway to cars and opening it up to people will eliminate a straight line route from Shrewsbury Road to the bottom of South Street, effectively putting a small ‘kink’ into the journey. We believe this will help deter some of the repeated incidents of ‘drag racing’ up and down South Street which causes a huge amount of nuisance (not to mention danger) for residents of Park Hill. The police have already crushed several cars in response to reports from residents, but this hasn’t been successful in deterring all incidents. Skyeline Pocket Park will, by its very design, force anyone driving up and down South Street to drive slower.

At present, the nightly incidents of anti-social behaviour and general tawdriness of the space means it is effectively only used by a very small number of people. Under our proposal, this neglected space with huge potential will be massively opened up to the wonderfully diverse and vibrant community around Park Hill, City Road and The Manor – especially young families and anybody nearby who wants more space to exercise, or just sit, reflect and unwind.

In one fell swoop, this project creates a beautiful new public space for Sheffielders, finally gives the city’s most famous view the setting it deserves, creates new opportunities for active travel and exercise, reduces or eliminates anti-social behaviour at the site, and helps make local residents — especially women — safer.

THE NEXT STEP

We know that we can’t make the full vision for Skyeline Pocket Park happen overnight. And we want to test out whether closing part of the unneeded and redundant roadway really will have the anticipated effect in terms of reducing the chronic anti-social behaviour our neighbourhood has suffered under for too long.

That’s why, as a next step, we’re calling for temporary planters or concrete blocks to be placed at each end of the redundant stretch of roadway we’re proposing to close, as well as around the perimeter of the unloved ‘triangle’ of green space to stop people simply driving over it or parking on it. These blocks would of course still allow those walking and wheeling to pass through, like those recently used in the city centre. This would be accompanied by an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order to test the effectiveness of the intervention over a 12 or 18 month period.

During this time, we propose that the council, the police, local residents and, of course, The Friends of Skyeline Pocket Park, could monitor the area to see what effect the temporary changes have, both on levels of anti-social behaviour and on the numbers of people from across the community using the space. We would propose a series of small events over the course of the closure at the space itself – these could explain the vision for the new Pocket Park, as well as celebrate the reclamation
of the space for people rather than traffic, and could include music, stalls, coffee trucks, food outlets, and perhaps even local arts and crafts sessions to cover the closed roadway in floor murals and to decorate the concrete blocks in vibrant and welcoming colours.