Letter: Sheffield street names

Making Sheffield a more diverse city through its public monuments archives museum collections street names, I wonder how many Sheffielders are aware of the survey and report whose purpose is what it states?

I urge them to look it up on the Sheffield City Council website and make their comments before September 10 when they will no longer have the right to respond directly to its rather vague afterthoughts.

It’s a result of the Coulson affair in Bristol which led to a rather worrying trend across local authorities in the United Kingdom.

It’s a thankfully brief report drawn up by hard pressed council staff and others who I know and respect and brief in part not the least because of Sheffield's radical past.

The overwhelming majority of Sheffielders will not give two hoots about about the above, especially its street names, it’s here perhaps where the possible future controvesy may occur.

Are we really concerned about having streets named after Cromwell (not the bloke who provided SWFC with the first of their trophies), Gordon of Khartoum (abolished slavery in the Sudan), Nelson, 'All Sir Garnett' Wolsey, Waterloo, Battle of the Alma, Rudyard Road (after Kipling who to me and many others makes exceedingly good poems, no the physical appearance of Alf Garnett is not modelled on him), and what about Frederick Gustavus Burnaby killed at Abu Klea (when the Gardiner not the Gatling jammed).

Surprising too that we do not know how many streets still exist or not.

And what about the Crimean War Memorial? Henry Havelock deserves his note in history and as for concern over the head with a turban in North Church Street, are the Sikhs concerned?

Finally the excellent guides compilied by Sheffield local studies are invaluable for the study of and reflection of Sheffield diverse communities

Lets not get swept up in gesture politics, after all, as Matthew Parrish pointed out in a recent Times article, some of us are proud of the achievements of the British Empire and Commonweath.