Old Town Hall: Landlord Gary Ata warned to make historic Sheffield building safe and waterproof
A landlord has been warned to make a key Sheffield historic building safe and waterproof almost three years after he bought it.
The city council has said it could issue an enforcement notice to safeguard the Old Town Hall on Waingate.
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Property developer Gary Ata snapped up the Grade II listed building in December 2022.
Since then, it appears he has “done nothing,” according to the Friends of the Old Town Hall.
They say it is in a “bad way, every year adding to the damage caused by sheer neglect from lack of heating, water ingress and vandalism.”
Mr Ata did not respond to The Star.
Dating back to 1810, the Old Town Hall has been disused since 1995.
Councillor Ben Miskell, chair of the transport, regeneration and climate policy committee at Sheffield City Council, said: “The Old Town Hall has played a significant role in the history of Sheffield and we, like the Friends group, would like to see it given a new lease of life.
“At the moment there isn’t a live planning application for the building and our officers are monitoring the condition of the building.”
The authority has the power to issue a Section 215 enforcement notice to make the building safe and waterproof, he added.
Mr Ata registered a company called The Court House Apartments (Sheffield) Ltd. But no planning application has been submitted.
Valierie Bayliss, chair of the Friends group, said: “We’re coming up for the tenth anniversary of our founding. We started campaigning in 2014 never thinking we’d still have to be making a noise 10 years later because this wonderful, important building is still being left to rot.”
The Old Town Hall was built between 1810 and 1895, with an extension in 1955. It was a home of local government and a courthouse, with a spell as police station.
The Friends group say it is important in the city’s history. It is where the bodies of the five men shot dead by the yeomanry at a political demonstration in 1832 were laid.
It’s where victims of the Sheffield Flood in 1864 came for support, where Charlie Peace was arraigned for murder in 1878, where a lot of relief following the Sheffield Blitz in 1940 was organised and where trials of striking miners in connection with the coal strike of 1984 spectacularly collapsed.
The Friends was set up in 2014. By late 2018 they say they had a 10-year plan for re-use, with a business plan, conservation architect’s survey, costing for restoration and a charitable body set up to take ownership.
The work was funded by grants raised by the Friends. Discussions had begun with the city council on compulsory purchase and sale to the new charity.
But then the building was sold, first to a company led by Efe Omu which collapsed before any work was done and then to Mr Ata.
Ms Bayliss added: “We’re only a year off the 30th anniversary of the building falling out of use.
“It’s a disgrace for the city to leave what should be an asset neglected and unused. Will it still be like this when that 30th anniversary comes round in 2025? Or is someone just hoping it will fall down?”