‘It is turning Sheffield city centre into a place you are scared to go to’ - drug taking and violence reach epidemic proportions in the city

According to city centre residents’ group Changing Sheff, 22,000 people live in the city centre, while tens of thousands more come into the city every day to work, shop and have fun.

However, with the current level of anti-social behaviour and disorder, many people who live and work in the city centre doubt whether the council’s ambitious plans to develop High Street and Fargate are workable.

The issue illustrates a tension between the need for economic development - especially as the city enters what is likely to be the worst recession in living memory - and compassion for the least fortunate among us.

But two people - one who works in the city centre and one who actually lives there - say that while many who use the area want to be compassionate to those less blessed than themselves, consideration to the law-abiding majority must be paramount.

Sharon Roberts, from Woodhouse, who works on Arundel Gate for Sheffield Hallam University, said she had experienced a number of incidents in the city centre that had left her scared to go to work.

In one incident, she said a ‘man out of his head on spice’ had to be saved from being run over by a bus and in another, staff members at SHU’s 111 building were harassed and intimidated by aggressive beggars.

She said: “It is dreadful. At one point I wanted to go to Poundland to get some biscuits for work but I was too scared to go.

“There was an article about ‘cafe culture’ in the Star a while back but how on earth can you have a cafe culture when there are spice users, drunks and beggars everywhere.

“Why would you want to go to Sheffield city centre to see that?”

Sharon said that while she had a great deal of sympathy for the individuals who found themselves in such desperate situations, and supported attempts to help them, ultimately the problem was now affecting everyone who lived and worked there.“I honestly don’t know what should happen and I wish I had an answer,” she said.

“I don’t know where they are coming from but it is clear that drugs and alcohol is the main cause. You can see them doing it openly on Fitzalan Square.

“Fargate used to be lovely but this is turning the city centre into a place you are scared to go to.”

At the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown in March, hopes had risen that the Government's ‘everyone in’ policy under which all homeless people were offered emergency accommodation to keep them safe for the duration of the pandemic would improve things.

However, rather than getting better during lockdown, according to one city centre resident, the problem actually got worse.

“I myself have been pushed up against a wall by someone who was off their head which wasn’t very nice,” said the woman, who asked not to be named in this report.

“I have also seen someone be bullied into going to a cash point to get money for someone who had demanded it.

“There have also been really big fights, addicts gather in large numbers near the Cathedral and you constantly see people slumped in doorways looking like they are dead.

“It is so distressing when you see them like that and it is hard to know what to do but everyone I speak to thinks it is a major issue and won’t come in anymore.”

The woman said she had written emails to three Sheffield Council cabinet members, only one of whom - Deputy Leader Mark Jones - had replied.

The complaints came in response to a story from earlier this month in which a city centre pub owner said he was ‘sick and tired’ of seeing an already-struggling city centre brought down further by the behaviour of people drinking, taking drugs and harassing people for money.

Conor Smith, who owns the Dog & Partridge on Trippet Lane, took a photo of Fargate showing one man in a ‘zombie-like’ state, unresponsive on the floor and with bedding scattered around him.

He said: “There was lots of guys hanging around zombied out. They were being aggressive, demanding money off people, abusing people and fighting people.

"It’s been going on for ages in the city centre, it’s terrible. It’s a daily occurrence.”

Sheffield Council have been asked to provide a statement.

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