RETRO: How '˜Rotherham bypass' became today's Sheffield Parkway

The site of the 'Rotherham bypass' in 1960, which became the Sheffield Parkway, at a cost of Â£244,000 and linked to the M1, which was not yet built at the time

But there was a time in the not-too-distant past when many of the city’s most used and most vital roads simply didn’t exist.

Pictured here in 1960 is the Sheffield Parkway, before it actually became the Parkway. As The Star reported at the time: “A view of the new £244,000 Rotherham bypass. Named the Sheffield Parkway, it will connect Sheffield with the London-Yorkshire motorway planned to pass through Eastern Sheffield.”

The Icelert system, installed in 1968 - at the time considered a cutting edge way to alert the council about ice buildup on the roads

The Rotherham by-pass, aka the Parkway, was intended to connect to the M1, which also didn’t exist at the time.

Also pictured is the official opening of the Parkway: with councillors cutting the ribbon on September 16, 1974.

In the late 1960s, Sheffield got a fancy new system called ‘Icelert’, which looks a bit like a board with some lights in it, which is supposed to warn the council when there is ice on the roads.

It’s not known what became of this cutting edge creation, but a 2010 report said Sheffield still has seven ice alert stations in operation.

Also shown is the construction of Sheffield’s inner ring road, built in the mid-1990s - a system we all love today for its simplicity and ease of use, of course...