Heritage? Don’t make me laugh

Sheffield, S35

Ron Clayton’s latest ramblings, bemoaning the loss of heritage, (Letters, Thursday, January 24), had me falling of the settee and nearly choking on the irony of his comments.

Ron, along with a few others, has done more damage to our City heritage than the Luftwaffe managed all those years ago.

His group along with certain councillors and Town planners spent years putting the boot into the old Markets site.

They ultimately triumphed and realised their dream of a mythical castle rising like a phoenix from the depths under the old Market.

We have now ended up with an even bigger pile of worthless, uninteresting stone and mud with no castle or even anything of historical interest to bring in the thousands of tourists that they so enthusiastically envisioned.

All this codswallop has cost this city millions including a move to the half-empty Moor market, an enterprise that will not be paid for until the cows come home.

Who is paying you may ask? It’s not the stalls with many unlet and shuttered up.

So back to the heritage, The Heritage that was the oldest living historical area in OUR City that spread from the Don at Lady’s Bridge up Castle Gate and down Exchange Street, bordered by Dixon Lane and up King Street, this trading area now lost and its heritage with it.

Ron then adds Kelham Island to his list, saying that this area is now the new bee’s knees of our city.

Well, as far as I can see the areas obsession with changing names of historical pubs and industrial buildings, along with the relentless building of flats, (apartments), for the upwardly mobile at the expense of housing that would be of benefit to the families and descendants of the folk who actually toiled in the sweat shops in Kelham is once again heritage in reverse.

Only last week I visited a pal who has run his steel business in one of the last remaining factories in Kelvin, (Shalesmoor), and with tears in his eyes he told me that he has had notice to quit.

His hard work too lost and forgotten in the foundations of the latest high rise that will front Peistone Road.

Heritage? Don’t make me laugh.