Questions over Sheffield Market Tavern pub demolition controversy

Work was taking place on the Market Tavern on Exchange Street as part of the £37m regeneration of the Castlegate area to celebrate the medieval birthplace of Sheffield.

An investigation is currently taking place into events around the confirmation of a demolition order for the building on January 10. It had previously been declared structurally unsafe by the council after problems were found during work to remove asbestos.

The council had to issue an apology after heritage group Hallamshire Historic Building Society successfully argued for the demolition to be halted for 24 hours while they sought a second opinion, then the demolition went ahead.

A council statement said: “Our initial belief was that the top turret on the building had collapsed under its own weight on the morning of January 10.

“New information has since come to light which shows the demolition company were instructed in error at 11.53am to continue with demolition. As a result of this order, our understanding is the turrets fell because of the recommenced demolition works.”

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This came to light when magazine Now Then obtained video evidence that showed the turrets were still in place after the council said they had fallen down.

Coun Richard Shaw raised the issue during a discussion of all the regeneration schemes taking place in and around the city centre. He asked for a timeline of events.

Committee chair Coun Ben Miskell said: “It is important to say that these matters are now subject to an internal investigation that will become public because transparency is really important to us as a council and we need to learn lessons from whatever has happened here.” He said there may be limits as to what could be discussed at the meeting.

Director of regeneration and development Sean McClean said that information released by the council had been found to be not fully factually correct. He said that further discussion would need to wait until the investigation has taken place and the results have been published.

Coun Miskell said that the investigation was being undertaken by someone independently of the project and outside of the regeneration and development team, to be concluded by the end of the month.