"They've killed the area" - Businesses say road layout changes destroying trade in trendy Sheffield district
“If it was better I would say it was better - but it’s not”
Businesses in a trendy Sheffield district say the city council has “killed the area” - blaming a series of road layout changes for a fall in trade.
The traders in Neepsend claim that customers are struggling to navigate road layouts after the introduction of bus gates and one way systems, let alone find parking spaces when they do arrive.
It comes after years of efforts by the council to pedestrianise the area and neighbouring Kelham Island in a bid to revitalise the former industrial district.
“We've been here since 1995 and we've had no trouble apart from the last two years - it's affected everything,” Tony and Jackie Callaghan, who run Greaves Powder Coating on Hick Street, said.
Among the many changes affecting them, the pair have seen double yellow lines placed across their own drive, making it near-impossible for loading vehicles to serve their business.
Combined with a loss of parking spaces, they say that the new layouts have seen them lose seven customers in the past two years, resulting in a 42.5 per cent drop in turnover.
Sheffield City Council initially began consulting about changes to the area’s road layouts in 2021 as part of the ‘Connecting Sheffield: Neepsend and Kelham’ scheme.
Locals have complained that the consultation website - which they say was the only way to offer feedback on the plans - was “unnavigable ” and despite putting forward a number of objections only minor changes to the plans were made.
Years later and one way systems, bus gates, clean air zone restrictions on the nearby A61 dual carriageway and a parking permit scheme have left businesses feeling like they’re being pushed out of Neepsend, they said.
“They say Kelham Island’s thriving - it is Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it’s not midweek, there’s nobody about,” Tony and Jackie added.
“[The council] have killed the area. All they want is residential and not the businesses.”
A number of applications for new housing and apartment blocks have been submitted to the council in recent years, with plans for 500 homes at a 4.2-acre site, which was once home to Stones Brewery, being approved in July.
Meanwhile, igloo Regeneration have been working with the council and Homes England to turn former steel works from Cornish Street in Kelham Island to Rutland Road into more than 400 homes.
Businesses fear that the road changes are being made as part of long-term housing plans, leaving them to suffer in the meantime.
“If it was better I would say it was better - but it’s not,” Maurice Alexander, who runs Bardwell Business Enterprises, said.
“It's actively worse. Even for pedestrians and bikers it's got to be worse.”
Maurice’s business used to offer self storage facilities on Bardwell Road, but due to parking restrictions he has had to move operations to another location on Clay Wheels Lane.
And despite suggestions that public transport options and improved walking and wheeling offerings will keep the area accessible, Maurice says that this hasn’t been the case.
“The buses are quite infrequent - you'll have a job to spot one an hour,” he continued.
“Which do you do first, improve the bus service or destroy the roads?
“I’m not in that sort of position, but logic dictates to me that you should improve the public transport before you start messing about restricting access.
“But who knows? The council moves in mysterious ways.”
Despite these challenges, he admits that he’s “by no means near the worst worst affected” by the changes.
Sean Needham, at nearby Hicks Street Fish and Chip Shop, tells the same story, saying that he’s lost 35 per cent of his business in recent years.
He claims that customers regularly tell him that they “can’t get down the street” and his traditional lunch-focused business - which only opens between 11.15am and 1.45pm midweek - is suffering the price.
“We’ve been up here 26 years,” he added.
“In the past two and a half years of this, not one single person’s walked into this shop and said ‘isn’t it better down here now that they’ve done this’.
“What they’ve done has created havoc.”
Sheffield City Council has been contacted.