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We need to talk about Fargate


Sheffield History

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The last photo shows just how much the council cares about the look of Fargate, flags dug up and never replaced long after the work had been completed. Asphalt laid while the flag stones have probably ended up in one of the workers or managers garden.

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14 minutes ago, tozzin said:

The last photo shows just how much the council cares about the look of Fargate, flags dug up and never replaced long after the work had been completed. Asphalt laid while the flag stones have probably ended up in one of the workers or managers garden.

 


I wonder if that's the council or that company that the council employs on that MASSIVE contract thingy?

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22 minutes ago, Sheffield History said:

 


I wonder if that's the council or that company that the council employs on that MASSIVE contract thingy?

The jobs are supposed to be signed off by a council representative I believe but not in this case but with the town hall being so close you would think that at least one councillor would have seen it and asked the question why is it like that. A few years ago on the corner of Fargate and Norfolk Row work was carried out on the pavement outside what was then the H&M shop, when the contractors had finished they did replace the flags but even & level they were not, they were broken and a danger to the public,in short a mess, I sent photos to Amey and the reply I received was unbelievable they had no idea who the contractors even though I told them it was Murphys, a few weeks later it was taken up and replaced, just a few hundred yards away on Cross Burgess Street, a trench was dug up the pavement and on to Burgess Street, the block paving was never put back but asphalt put down instead and despite complaints from myself, it was never put back to the block paving it was. You can see examples of this practice all round the city centre.

https://earth.app.goo.gl/?link=https://earth.google.com/web/search/Cross%2BBurgess%2BStreet,%2BSheffield%2BCity%2BCentre,%2BSheffield/@53.37928487,-1.47113109,84.80656551a,0d,60y,88.97942829h,96.50322877t,0r/data%3DCigiJgokCVbEwqbfsEpAEdx73zvkr0pAGZ-C8pxkWve_Icumc9S-jfe_IhoKFnhCcFZyZWliWE9XcG1BYWJHM2hpZWcQAg?fdl%3D1&apn=com.google.earth&isi=293622097&ibi=com.google.b612&ius=googleearth&cid=6651290419400497691&_fpb=CNgIEMIGGgVlbi1HQg==&_cpt=cpit&_iumenbl=1&_iumchkactval=1&_plt=1054&_uit=5568&_cpb=1

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Not necessarily the council  who dug it up, the utility companies have a responsibility to put back what they dig up as well. Trouble is if the originals are damaged they might not be able to get similar types. If I remember rightly the paving on Fargate was some special kind from either China or Italy! The highways dept used to monitor 'reinstatement' issues and make sure they were done properly, but I  don't know if this passed to Amey or not. 

Nigel L

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37 minutes ago, Lemmy117 said:

Not necessarily the council  who dug it up, the utility companies have a responsibility to put back what they dig up as well. Trouble is if the originals are damaged they might not be able to get similar types. If I remember rightly the paving on Fargate was some special kind from either China or Italy! The highways dept used to monitor 'reinstatement' issues and make sure they were done properly, but I  don't know if this passed to Amey or not. 

Nigel L

I didn’t say the council dug it up but it’s under the remit of Amey but it’s quite obvious they do not monitor their contractors. As for replacements, there’s always , always more ordered than needed so you can see them in depots around the city or as seen they use any overstock by dumping them in other large fills, before   any says how do you know my brother saw it on happen many times.

The  photo shows a garden constructed with unwanted stones, block paving etc that Amey were intent on just throwing away.

9AB5E5EE-44BF-4D7D-8D95-A67C547A232A.jpeg

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Why does Fargate look so shabby?
Don’t blame the Council entirely! Shops are empty because of a lack of demand….too high rents or the dreaded cost of Council tax. Demand fell years ago when this once boom town suffered MASSIVE job losses…and, as a result ,less disposable income.Whilst things have improved there  are still too many charity shops and a feeling of poverty!

Add to that the changing patterns of shopping with, heaven help us, internet shopping becoming ever more important and ,currently ,the fear of Covid and the restrictions we endure when we use public transport( given that car parking in town is an expensive pass time) or enter a shop. Mask wearing may be fine for some but not all of us.

Sadly, town centre shopping is a thing of the past for me. I hate internet shopping…so I do without or  try to get it from Pistol Creeks.

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9 hours ago, Lysanderix said:

Why does Fargate look so shabby?
Don’t blame the Council entirely! Shops are empty entirely because of a lack of demand. Demand fell years ago when this once boom town suffered MASSIVE job losses…and, as a result ,less disposable income.Whilst things have improved there  are still too many charity shops and a feeling of poverty!

Add to that the changing patterns of shopping with, heaven help us, internet shopping becoming ever more important and ,currently ,the fear of Covid and the restrictions we endure when we use public transport( given that car parking in town is an expensive pass time) or enter a shop. Mask wearing may be fine for some but not all of us.

Sadly, town centre shopping is a thing of the past for me. I hate internet shopping…so I do without or  try to get it from Pistol Creeks.

I feel the council should shoulder part of the blame not entirely but some, they seem only to be bothered about helping the rise of accommodation projects. I hate internet shopping, I’m a tall chap 6ft 2inch and take a proper size 12 shoe and for these reasons alone I will not buy any clothing or shoes which bear no resemblance to my sizes, but being the age I am I find it very hard to get clothes that suit me.

Pistol Creeks, I thought it was just me who used that spoonerism, why haven’t I seen you there? Next time you go please wear a tu-tu so I can pick you out for a chat.

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The sign says £20.8 million!  On one street! What are they going to do with it, cover it in carpets?  That kind of money would be best spent elsewhere.  How many affordable homes could be built for people to live in with that money?  The street is simply a shopping street - not a visitor attraction. A reduction in rents for the buildings and an effort to get more business to move into the vacant places would be better for it. Then a real look into the expenditure that the council spends on feathering the nest of private contracts to carry out what would cost a normal builder three quarters less than what the council pay out to lay one paving stone.  I have seen it in practice. Contracts prices for various building projects come in at more than what it would costs. Simply because often the same company or project is seen by other building firms to get all the contracts. Even though they would be most expensive contract price. But they are not, as firms put in a price which often they just make up, knowing full well if they did somehow get the contract they would be rolling it in!  So the tax payers think they have got the best value from the competitive tendering system, as the council and government departments call it.  The price often goes up in price when conditions are added to the specifications.  Very often these could still be met on a much cheaper contract price. For example one company might have a good tract record of employing say young people. So something in the contract that states employment of young apprentices, will assure a good outcome for that company.  Of course with the money creamed off these contracts it's often fairly easy to employ a selected amount of young people. However that's just one of the reason a contract price can go high.  

The reason why there are so many left over stones and other building materials is that they are ordered in bulk. Then somebody decides that each job will require so much materials. However when the job is carried out, it turns out many get left over for a verity of reasons. But they can't be taken back and used for the next jobs as the council will have to mark them down as new stock. And because each council operates on budgets set each year. If any department hasn't spent up. That money is removed from next year's spending. Stock brought back will be classed as not being spent. So let's say they had £10K to spend on bricks. If they have £1K in stock still, they will get only £9K next year to spend on bricks.  It's cheaper to dump the £1K in bricks to the department.

Believe me the council just likes to waste money. You only have to listen to the employees to find out what they are wasting it on.  For example: as a council house tenant we recently had an electrical rewiring done. One of the inspectors told me that the council insist on taking digital pictures of the electrical fuse boards for their records. So he did take of the picture, it was old fuse board! That was going to be replaced with a new one in a few weeks time. So we the chap have to come back when the new one was fitted. No the old picture would do he said. He wasn't even a council employee. The firm contracted to do the work was HES.    

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Having materials left over from projects I believe, I contacted Amey to ask them if they would spare six small paving slabs, no we don’t give materials to the general populace, was the reply, if they don’t have space for storage Amey would rather dump them in land fill.

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14 hours ago, tozzin said:

I feel the council should shoulder part of the blame not entirely but some, they seem only to be bothered about helping the rise of accommodation projects. I hate internet shopping, I’m a tall chap 6ft 2inch and take a proper size 12 shoe and for these reasons alone I will not buy any clothing or shoes which bear no resemblance to my sizes, but being the age I am I find it very hard to get clothes that suit me.

 


I'm a big bloke too - Jacamo online is the only place for me

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PS - I'd hate for this thread to turn into a facebook style council blaming thing


The council can only do so much

 

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I think Amey still have to deal with the budget set by the Council. I don't think it has anything to do with storage space. They can't sell them to anyone, because technically any materials are supposed to have been used on projects and the accountants would want to know where the money came from that appeared in the books. It's possible I suppose that depot might be shut by the end of the day and so spares are dumped to get rid of them by workers working late (after the depot is closed).  The only way to find out why Amey dump materials would be to ask a few of the workers who do the job, not somebody in the office or on a phone. 

Many workers (when on their own) will explain things that bug them.  In fact they have based a TV series on it "Undercover Boss".  Though I wasn't his boss, the HEC man explained to me that for example the if the council was rewiring houses then a pack of the materials needed to do the house was made up and delivered to the site so they could do the project without coming back for materials to the depot all the time. But they would make the pack up for each house and if there were some four bedroom houses on the estate each pack was made up for a 4 bed house. Even if the majority were two or three beds. Thus by the end of the day they were left with large amounts of cable etc left over. But they couldn't take it back to the depot due to the budget thing. So the workers finished up flogging it or using it themselves, or skipping it. He said some of the cable was really expensive stuff too.  I should point that was another Council, not Sheffield, that did that, but I dare say you could see the same in Sheffield Council. 

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12 minutes ago, Sheffield History said:



PS - I'd hate for this thread to turn into a facebook style council blaming thing


The council can only do so much

 

Point taken.

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4 hours ago, Sheffield History said:



PS - I'd hate for this thread to turn into a facebook style council blaming thing


The council can only do so much

 

Not like you, Neil, to start a thread that would have the inevitable response then be upset about getting exactly that response 😉

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3 hours ago, paulhib48 said:

Not like you, Neil, to start a thread that would have the inevitable response then be upset about getting exactly that response 😉



I think the response isn't inevitable if people just avoid slipping down that rabbit hole of being 'council's to blame' that we see all too often

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4 hours ago, Sheffield History said:



I think the response isn't inevitable if people just avoid slipping down that rabbit hole of being 'council's to blame' that we see all too often

But in the case of Fargate the Council IS to blame - as they own the street, made it only for people and the charged the rates that has seen many business pull out or close.  You can't blame it on anyone or anything else.  I think you can argue that if the traffic was still passing down it, then people would have to walk at the side of the shops and would look in the windows and see something they liked. But you can now walk in the middle of the street and couldn't see anything in a window. Just look at the shops still open. The Phone shop, you wouldn't see anything from the middle of the street apart from the phone shop name. The sale posters have to be in big letters to get people to notice from the middle of the street.  Shops rely on passing trade. But many that were on Fargate were branches or banks and some still are. They don't rely on passing trades. They just need a location that is central and that doesn't cost a lot in running costs. High rates from the Council and they are out of there quick.

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