'A whole generation in Sheffield are falling through the cracks' - Reader's letter
Paige Turner of Surrey Street Flats on Sheffield’s future generations...
A whole generation in Sheffield are falling through the cracks thanks to the complete failure of Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat administrations to acknowledge and deal with the toxic legacy of successive Tory governments, in a city already scarred and subject to the social decay which is a direct consequence of Thatcher's deindustrialization and destruction of any and all nationalised industries.
There is a mothballed rail link between Stocksbridge and Sheffield, a facility which the nationalised British Rail used to transport football fans to the Sheffield Wednesday ground, taking a high number of car journeys off the road.
This became impossible to organise with the complex system which came with rail privatisation.
The Green Party in its previous guise as the Ecology Party opposed closure of the line as a through route in the 1980s yet have done no campaigning on getting the line reopened for local services. None.
Thousands of children in former industrial areas of Sheffield at Tinsley and Burngreave continue to suffer much higher levels of unemployment, adults with no qualifications and lower educational attainment.
Branch libraries offer a vital way out of such ruts yet the library service in these areas was withdrawn by the Labour council, a policy tacitly supported by the previous Green cabinet member for libraries and the current Green chair of the libraries committee by their silence on the subject.
Sheffield deserves better, but the answer is not to vote for a divisive Reform party.
I know that, but a lot of people fail to recognise the facts and vote Reform as a protest vote.
Invest in nationalised, properly resourced and properly staffed public transport and public libraries in Sheffield and across the United Kingdom for a Greener future.