Fear and Loathing in S11

Hello – and welcome to Thursday’s Tribune.

Community tensions in Sheffield are fortunately quite rare. But the flip side is that when something happens, it’s very visible. Last night The Tribune attended a hastily organized community meeting at Lost and Found on Ecclesall Road to discuss a spate of crime and anti-social behavior which has taken place on the normally quiet streets of S11. The problem has been developing for about a year, but has worsened significantly in recent months. During the meeting, council and police officials heard first-hand how upset people were about what happened in their community. But what was really behind it? Dan Hayes reports.

Join us today

Editor’s note: I think articles like this show how important journalism is. A story about how comments on Facebook groups can quickly become vigilante shows how crucial reliable sources of information are. But such reporting takes time and costs money. While we love all of our 23,000 subscribers, we love those who fund our work. If you appreciate what we do and would like to read today’s important story about community tensions in Ecclesall Road in full, please click the button above and become a paying member today.

From today’s sponsor: For the 40 years^th anniversary festival, Music in the Round has enlisted guest curator Steven Isserlis, “one of the greatest cellists of all time” (Classic FM) to curate nine days of concerts featuring music from Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and more. Some of this year’s highlights include a unique night of Saint-Saëns music – which includes a screening of the first film to have a specially commissioned score (Details) — and an evening of French music with Roderick Williams (singer at the Coronation of King Charles III) for a night in Paris with music by Fauré and Poulenc (Details).

The festival is an incredible opportunity to see world-class musicians right here in Sheffield – don’t miss it. To see the full program and book tickets, click Here.

🪧 University of Sheffield Vice Chancellor Koen Lamberts has been forced out of the Sheffield Education Awards after a pro-palestinian demonstration, Report Tab. A group carrying flags and banners stormed the stage, demanding that the university “cut ties with the arms trade” as well as Israeli universities. As university staff members joined protesters on stage, Mr Lamberts was escorted from the venue and security told attendees the event had been cancelled.

🏗️ Plans have been submitted to Sheffield City Council which would see 102 new homes built on the site Old Coroner’s Court on Pepiniera street. The 10-story building would include both studios and apartments, a co-working space, resident terraces, secure bike spaces, factory rooms and trash facilities. Attempts by the Victorian Society to save the 1913 building took place five years ago, but since then it has further deteriorated. A decision on the proposal will be made in July.

🧗 Some of the Park Hill flats could be turned into a giant climbing wall if a new event this fall gets the go-ahead. Climbing Sky’s Edge from September 9-15 this year, dozens of climbing blocks will be fixed to the side of one side of the building, creating a set of different routes for climbers to try. As well as expert climbers, there will also be an opportunity for residents and others to have a go too, so you can expect to see Dan trying his hand at it later this year.

🌱 Woolley Wood in Wincobank is an ancient woodland home to a spectacular show of bells every spring. On Saturday, join Sheffield Woodland Connections on a guided walk around the woodland to find the best displays, as well as some of the other wildflowers and trees that call Woolley Wood home. The 90-minute walk starts at 3pm and costs £8 (children go free). Meet at the small car park off Ecclesfield Road five minutes before the start time.

🍿 Saturday at Victoria Hall, the Hallam Symphony goes to the cinema with a concert of great film scores as well as orchestral pieces that have been used in films. Plays to be performed on the night will include a Jurassic Park Suite and The Star Wars suite by John Williams, Barber’s Adagio for stringsA The James Bond suite by John Barry, of Wagner Journey of the Valkyries and Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni. Tickets are priced from £4 to £12 and doors open at 7.30pm

✊ Learn more about Sheffield’s 200 years of radical history on this political history walk through the city center. On the tour, you’ll see the shop where the suffragettes planned a direct action campaign to win the vote, find out which pub hosted big Chartist meetings and meet some of the characters from the strikes and struggles that still inspire today. Tickets cost £5-£15 and the tour starts at Sheffield Town Hall at 12pm. Another will start at the same place at 15.00.

By Dan Hayes

“S11 is approaching lynch mob territory. It’s very messy.”

That was the message that hit the Tribune’s inbox last Thursday, just as Sheffield went to the polls for this year’s local elections. While community tensions occasionally flare up here, S11 is not usually the postcode where it happens. Ecclesall has been ground zero for tree protests and there’s been a spirited debate about bus lanes and parking policy in recent years, but angry mobs? In my experience, these are not typical of the area.

According to an eyewitness, last Wednesday a group of around 30 boys, all apparently teenagers from the local area, marched down Ecclesall Road from Endcliffe Park to a house opposite Eccy’s takeaway at 776. There the boys were met with a barrage of abuse, stones and bricks from the family within. Unsurprisingly, given the scale of the incident, it wasn’t long before the police arrived. Photos shared on Facebook were quickly deleted. According to another witness, the family that lived in the house left the next day.

As always, social media raised more questions than it provided answers. I wanted to know why such a surprising incident happened in the relatively quiet atmosphere of S11. What we heard were stories of violence that led a group of children to become vigilantes, effectively driving a troubled but vulnerable family from their home.

After speaking extensively with people in the area this week, none of whom wanted to be named in this story, a story is emerging. The police couldn’t give me any information about the family due to data protection and safeguarding, but I feel pretty confident about this version of events. Around this time last year, a family moved into a house on Ecclesall Road, not far from the Hunter’s Bar roundabout. The house is a council property and has never attracted much attention before. The family was large: a mother and nine children, aged between 15 and just a few months. Since their arrival, residents and merchants in the area have reported that the family’s children (except the youngest) have been causing trouble. Initially, this was fairly low-level antisocial behavior such as littering and making noise. More recently, however, there have been allegations of more serious crimes, including assault and robbery.

This situation came to a head last week with the march on the house, which spawned the “lynch mob” message I received. Later that same day, there was news of the incident reported in The Star together with a certain context of the case. The report spoke of a community “living in fear” and of intimidation and demands for money. Seven separate schools sent letters to parents advising them to talk to their children about personal safety. One school even advised its children to stay in larger groups and stay in well-lit, open and populated areas of Endcliffe Park, all just days before the busy bank holiday weekend. In the end, it never came to that – the family was moved by the council last week.

On Ecclesall Road on Tuesday, it doesn’t take long to find someone to talk about what happened. A local shopkeeper tells me he first noticed the family a year ago, initially because they were leaving rubbish in places and causing problems in shops in the area. However, she says the problems escalated into violence and looting when the nights started getting dark last winter.

“It wasn’t supposed to get to this stage,” she says. “If the police had intervened when it was just anti-social behaviour, it would have been broken and it wouldn’t have come to this.” She says what happened last week was that local boys “took a stand” and are “reclaiming the streets”: “You get something when kids feel they have to take action,” she adds. “But that was a direct result of inaction in the first place.”