'The Sheffield Park Square Roundabout incident is the largest police cordon I've ever seen'
I walked the length and breadth of today’s Park Square Roundabout police cordon - I saw Sheffield at a standstill.
Whatever is happening in The Gateway flat block today has put an entire city on hold.
When I arrived at the police cordon surrounding the Park Square Roundabout today, I was free to take my pictures from the middle of a dual carriageway. It’s not like there were any cars.
At 6.40am today (February 11), my instructions were that something had happened on Broad Street so out of the ordinary that police saw fit to shut one of Sheffield’s busiest roundabouts in every direction. I was told to get photos of the scene from every angle, and make my way to Ponds Forge Sports Centre, which was being used as an evacuation centre.
From the small footbridge over Sheaf Street, I could see Ponds Forge’s entrance. From that spot, it would normally take two minutes to reach. Today, it would take over an hour.
Today’s cordon is the most extensive I have seen in seven years as a reporter. Park Square is on lockdown. From footpaths to cycle lanes to some of the busiest roads in Sheffield like Parkway, there wasn’t a street I saw without police tape blocking the way.
At every junction, I ran into early-birds on their way to work or trying to get home after long overnight shifts, but found their normal route under police guard. The lucky ones were escorted through the tape, but I met many more who knew they could be fruitlessly walking for miles before they got where they needed to be.
Bard Street, shut. Broad Street, shut. Quiet footpaths off Park Hill, shut. And everywhere I went were cyclists, nurses coming off duty, and exasperated people pulling luggage behind them, like mice in a maze.
My own efforts took me over the Bernard Road bridge over Parkway, where approximately the entire commuting population of East Sheffield was parked on the dual carriageway. The line of headlights glaring at me in the dark stretched away further than I could see.
It was another two miles, via Effingham Road and a cycle path alongside Victoria Quays, before I saw the roundabout again. It was here I got my first real look at Park Square. Between the dozens of emergency service vehicles, the drone in the air and the complete lack of any pedestrians or cars, I felt like I was somewhere I shouldn’t be. An otherwise unremarkable decorator’s van with a ladder on its roof drove past - then I realised it had just switched on a discreet pair of red-and-blue lights.
At the entrance to The Gateway’s car park there was a strange sight - half a dozen armed police officers, stood with the air of a work crew who have been waiting for hours. This incident kicked off at 7pm on February 10, and here we all were, 12 hours later, with the city still on hold and an entire flat block sleeping in a sports centre.
I crossed the bridge off Blonk Street and looked down on the busiest roundabout in Sheffield, devoid of anyone not in a uniform. Also on the bridge were two officers in imposing black uniforms, watching The Gateway through binoculars.
Finally, after a quick apology to this officer, a “don’t mind me” to that officer, a short walk down the Commercial Street tram tracks and a shortcut through an underground car park I’ve never seen before, I was at Ponds Forge. The bridge I had stood on over an hour before was around 50 metres away.
I would find out later I had just walked the same route the residents of The Gateway had to take last night when they were evacuated. A clearly sleep deprived couple nursing a McDonald’s coffee in the Pond’s Forge lobby told me: “It was 7pm when we heard a loud bang, like someone was messing around on the balcony.
“Then, at 7.20pm, police came banging on our doors telling us we needed to get out.
“We couldn’t cross over the roundabout though, and ended up walking two miles to The Wicker to get here.
“It wouldn’t take 10 minutes normally.”
Navigating police cordons for a photo is not unusual for reporters, but today’s response at the Park Square Roundabout is the largest I’ve ever witnessed.
Whatever is happening at The Gateway has disrupted Sheffield like a clot, with no indication if or when it will come to a close today.