We ventured into Page Hall with the man trying to improve it – here's what happened next

Councillor Mark Jones is one of three Sheffield councillors representing the relatively small grid of 900-odd houses beset by a long list of problems. You name the crime, it’s allegedly happening there.

He wants us to see for ourselves what the Council is up against.

The cabinet member for Environment, Streetscene and Climate Change pulls no punches as we set off from the bottom of Page Hall Road.

"It’s grimy, there’s no two ways about that,” he says just before a boy of about 10 accosts him for ‘a penny for the Guy’.

There is no Guy, but there are several garden fires as we make our way round the tightly packed, largely terraced streets. Later, with smoke filling one road, Cllr Jones finds 12 people gathered burning wood. He predicts they are all living under one roof in a two-up two-down property.

"Completely insane” housing laws mean up to six kids can live in the same home without it being legally overcrowded, with rents as high as £700 in the area.

"There are some good landlords and there are some really good people but they are living in such squalid conditions,” he tells us.

Many absent landlords “just don’t care”, however, with evidence found of tenants being told to dump unwanted items when moving out.

Fly-tipping has worsened in recent weeks, he says, attributing the large volume of waste to the sheer number of people crammed under many roofs.

Bins are emptied and streets are cleaned daily, but disillusioned resident Simon Alexander Mark, who only arrived in February, says the deep clean “lasts half a day.”

"I have been at the end of my tether since February,” Simon’s partner of 10 years, Emma Hunt, adds. She was assaulted after confronting other residents about their anti-social behaviour.

“I didn’t think any area in Sheffield should be a slum. They kick our door in, they sit on my car, play music outside my window. I have to live with this.”

Simon, who has lived in social housing all his life, says: “I have never seen anything like what goes on round here. Eventually it just gets to you. People snap but then they get targeted.”

Used sanitary towels have been thrown onto their kitchen roof and Simon brushes discarded, half-eaten food from his windowsill as he thanks us for bothering to listen after previous complaints to the authorities were ‘ignored’.

On the encounter, Cllr Jones says: “The anger levels are pretty much what I would expect from lots of residents.

"The most disturbing thing for me is the amount of people who fought for the area who have almost given up on it.”

He blames tension between different ethnic groups living in Page Hall on a lack of dialogue and says the Roma-Slovak community are unfairly blamed for many problems.

"These guys have had centuries of discrimination. They don’t want to be in there either and say it’s horrible, we don’t like it.

"It’s at breaking point and Covid hasn’t helped. Everyone’s under pressure and that’s when it becomes really dangerous.”

He points to the example of some young men playing music from a car parked on the edge of the neighbourhood to illustrate his point about the ill-treatment of the Roma community.

"Down there it’s Roma scum, up here it’s just another lad playing music in his car.

"One of my officers spotted a Somali woman putting a bag out on the floor, he followed her and she spat in his face.”

Among the most serious allegations made about Page Hall is that prostitution and child grooming is happening there.

Cllr Jones says: “The police have dealt with prostitution in the area, it does occur. It’s about getting intelligence and people don’t pass it on.

“I think certain times people make assumptions about what’s going on. Grooming may or may not happen, I’m not aware of it myself.”

As we make our way round there are people gathered on every street, from young girls dancing to Tik Tok routines to men drinking and smoking. It’s good-natured but social distancing is non-existent.

"If you were a tenant in one of these houses you would want to be on the street. There are lots of kids round but they are not bad,” he insists as a teenage boy kicks a can down the road in our direction.

Cllr Jones claims he doesn’t feel threatened walking through the area yet some residents say they are ‘prisoners in their own homes’.

The Council’s struggles in Page Hall are seemingly like a game of cat and mouse (or rat), or whack-a-mole. No sooner is one problem dealt with, it’s happening again on another street, or there’s a new issue.

A woman walks past playing loud music from a portable sound system. Cllr Jones says some locals realised speakers can’t be confiscated unless they are inside someone’s house, so brought the party into the street.

Another man fined for fly-tipping asked Cllr Jones when the neighbourhood enforcement officers work, presumably so he could avoid getting caught next time. Different shift patterns help them maintain the element of surprise and 450 fixed penalty notices were issued in Page Hall last year – the equivalent of fining every other house.

"The amount of poverty round here is truly terrible but that’s no excuse for people living scruffy,” Cllr Jones says.

"We are not uncaring [...] we are trying to make a difference but ultimately we can’t do it all ourselves. I’m going to make sure my services are doing everything they can to keep the area clean. I feel we are in that position.”

He adds: “People feel like they have been abandoned, we are definitely not giving up on it. I don’t want to knock it down.”