Sheffield councillors ask what went wrong in Fargate Container Park ‘shambles’

A special meeting of the council’s strategy and resources policy committee got answers from key officials, who agreed that lessons need to be learned, but defended the actions of staff.

Councillors were told that Yorkshire Water complained about the park being sited over sewers, whereas it raised no objections to the far heavier Sheffield Eye big wheel on the same spot.

The container park is running using a diesel generator costing £10,000 a month because a utility company disconnected the electricity supply also used for markets and events to do emergency repairs without telling the council – which was still paying for it.

Councillors agreed to keep the container park open, which is trading well, until after Christmas and look again in January about when and where it should move. Traders will also get support and advice, including identifying where they could move next.

The addition of the first-floor bar and terrace has been shelved for now.

‘Bit of a shambles’

Richard Eyre, director of streetscene, said seven independent businesses have been trading since October, doing particularly well since the Christmas market opened.

Coun Martin Smith asked why the project had not been put out to tender. He said: “One company expressed an interest. How did you go about testing the market? Were there any other companies out there that wanted to put a bid in but were declined?”

Later on, he commented: “Let’s be honest, it’s been a bit of a shambles.”

Ben Brailsford, part of the core team, said: “We did market research across the country. We looked at those who could design and build container parks.

“We didn’t find anyone that could build, design and operate from that market proposal. We only got one submission back through from Steelyard and they were able to design, build and operate.”

Interim director of legal and governance David Hollis said that the single tender was signed off without the need to go to the market because that is allowed for projects with a turnover of less than £5 million.

‘Lessons to learn’

Coun Joe Otten was concerned at why the project had to use a diesel generator.

Mr Brailsford said that a power supply maintained in the location for a number of years had been disconnected by a utility company during emergency works without informing the council .

Coun Angela Argenzio said: “As quite a few things that have gone wrong with the project and quite considerable delays considering it’s not a permanent project, how will you ensure as an authority that we don’t do this again without checking the water and electricity?

“These are really basic things I thought would be the first thing you’d do before we agreed something as substantial as this, so is there anything in terms of lessons like for the next time?”

Mr Eyre said: “I completely agree there are lessons to learn from this. I think there needs to be a full debrief and a review of what we have done here and learn those lessons for the future.”

He said the power disconnection was only discovered when workers dug down to use it. He said council staff are now working to recover the money that was paid to retain the live supply.

Air pollution concern

On the sewer issue, he said: “We don’t need to consult Yorkshire Water for a temporary planning consent for this. Yorkshire Water came forward to say they’d got concerns it was over their main sewers.

“The reason we’d not informally consulted was we’d had a structure of more tonnage on that site – the big, big wheel, rememberthe Sheffield Eye? – which is probably four times the weight of the containers.

“That wasn’t in need of support and there were no issues on that at all. Yorkshire Water were part of that because of the longer-term planning. That’s why Yorkshire Water wasn’t consulted at that point.

“To be fair, officers have made the right assumptions on decisions but I think there is a lot to learn from how we’ve handled this process. That would be part of the debrief.”

Green Party group leader Coun Douglas Johnson said he was “not happy in running generators when we’re trying to do some work on air pollution in the city centre”.

He was concerned not to “throw good money after bad on this” and said that the structure should be moved as soon as possible because that would have to happen anyway next spring.

‘Best use of money’

Coun Joe Otten said the container park had been funded by a Getting Building government grant. “Sometimes these funds are quite time limited. The danger therefore is that you spend it on something that is not possibly the best use of money.

“We need to be in a position that we’ve got projects that we’ve thought about carefully that are going to do a lot of lasting good on the high street, or wherever it is, that we can put into train when these funds come along.”

He added: “The lesson I would like to learn is handling grant money from the government and spending it on better things.”

Meeting chair and LibDem group leader Coun Shaffaq Mohammed said: “For me it just feels like a missed opportunity. The fact that we could have had this element open in the summer with all the success of the UEFA women’s football here and the opportunities that a very nice British summer afforded a city like Sheffield this year and it seems like so many things could have gone right and we seem to have fallen at every hurdle.”

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