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The history of
the Millennium Park is linked to the history of the
Heeley City Farm: John Le Corney from the City
Farm, who has a lot of experience of involvement of
the community, in particular schools and in project
work, was involved in a group bid to create the
Millennium Park from Lottery funds around 1996, on
the site adjacent to the City Farm. This bid was
turned down and it became clear that funds would
not be forthcoming unless an organisation was
founded formally. This resulted in the
establishment of the Heeley Development Trust as a
charity in 1996. The Millennium Park was identified
as the main focus of the Trust's work, building on
existing links with the community. Clare Burnell
and Trudie Smallwood are mainly responsible for
strategic planning in the Trust; Tom White took
over responsibility for Phase 3 of the Millennium
Park project when he joined the Trust in 1998 as
Project manager (see also below). The project
consists of three Phases, funded as
follows: Phase 1-
involved fund raising (proving to fund holders the
project was a worthwhile venture), plan and design
making and preliminary site works; Phase 2 -
consisted of the bulk of the work on the ground -
creation of paths and playgrounds, planting
etc.; Phase 3 -
involves working on western end of the site on land
adjacent to Phase 1 and 2 of the Park. Hidden
Costs Other Trusts
should be aware of the hidden costs which may be
linked with commitments/negotiations with a local
Council when they take over land for the local
community to use, even when ostensibly the land is
being given free (or at peppercorn rate) to a local
community organisation. In the case of Heeley, the
local Trust had to raise additional funds (or
divert them from doing the real work the community
could perceive on the ground) to cover charges for:
It is important
that any Trust is aware of these hidden costs when
embarking on fund raising - City Council
departments now charge everybody and each other for
any services supplied, all of which adds to the
costs of any project. The City now
does nothing to maintain an area they once had to
find annual sums to maintain and yet it even
charges the Trust for the smallest of tasks. In
developing the internal market for a local
authority, there appears to be no mechanism for
offsetting the savings which result from handing
land over to a community. For instance, the Trust
has to pay the City over £600 p.a. just to get
5 dog waste bins emptied on a regular basis and yet
the City has saved far greater sums by no longer
having to mow 2.5 hectares 7 to 10 times per annum.
ERDF funding is
secure until the end of December 2001; SRB funding
has been obtained until March 2003. Funding is
provided mainly by the SRB, ERDF (European Regional
Development Fund) and English Partnerships (now
Yorkshire Forward). To gain access to these funds
it was necessary to arrange matched funding,
including "in-kind" funding. The complexity of
funding arrangements caused unnecessary extra work
and stress for the already stretched and very small
Trust staff (e.g. the changing relationship during
the period between English Partnerships and SRB
funds). Following the allocation of funds an
additional problem has been the inappropriate
contractual procedures (for a small project)
demanded by certain fund holders, with each fund
holder asking for information in a different way.
Other difficulties include the lack of incentive to
obtain funding from other sources because of the
restrictive requirements of major fund holders,
i.e. renewal development monies can be reduced to
the Trust in line with the additional funding
obtained; such funds have to be shown to be public
donations to avoid this penalty clause. Local
businesses have gradually become involved in the
Park on the basis on in-kind land value. It is
hoped that bids for Objective One (EU) funds will
be successful in the future. The Trust has
received £5,000 from the Sheffield Employment
Bond (under auspices of South Yorkshire Community
Foundation), which is being used to employ a local
person in the Park. The Design and
Property Services (DPS) Department of Sheffield
City Council has been involved from the beginning,
initially through providing the first sketch plans
in 1996-97 and then through providing a detailed
site planning and design service, including the
drawings for the contractors. The design was
put out to tender and won by Sheffield City Direct
Works Department. They implemented the design on
the ground - completing Phases One and Two in 1999
and it is intended they will complete Phase Three
in 2000. Where possible
the Trust aims to give contract work to firms
within the area. However, the bigger the contract
the harder it is to ensure that this happens, with
the result that the actual funds can go outside and
not benefit the labour market in the area at all.
However, in this case the Trust was pleased that
they were able to give the work to local
people. There are two
maintenance issues in relation to Heeley Millennium
Park: getting the trees planted during the contract
to survive and organising the long-term
maintenance. Trees in the
Park Note : It is
suggested that any Trusts having work done by
outside contractors make regular formal checks with
their contractors during the planting period (make
a set of agreed site meeting notes, no matter how
'nice' and reliable the contractor seems) - in
particular remember that any trees with dried out
roots are dead before they are planted and ask for
replacements - it is the community's money at stake
and if all the trees die, you are going to have to
raise more funds to replace them. The Trust has
taken out a standpipe licence (c.£50 p.a.
charge) which enables watering from various sites
in the Park. Maintenance
of the Park Heeley
Development Trust has taken over maintenance
(including mowing) responsibilities for Phase One
and Two of the Millennium Park. The costs are
presently about £25,000 p.a. for labour and
on-costs. This provides a Park Keeper who is
responsible for mowing the grass, picking up
litter, keeping an eye on the playground etc. He is
a local person, park trained and long-term
unemployed. He is being trained on the job at the
same time as carrying out duties as specified by
the Trust. He has the added advantage that he
provides feedback on what people like/want/are
unhappy about in the Park. At these early stages
equipment costs are quite low - equipment costs
amount to £700 for a mower and £300 for a
strimmer. 2 additional
grounds staff will be taken on for the
summer. NB In creating
the Park, planting trees, establishing a playground
area etc., the sustainable (in ecological terms)
aspects of the project were not promoted; it has
evolved instead as a series of social and economic
compromises. e.g. in the early days the Trust
wanted to close off a number of roads, but the cost
factor (paying the City engineers to process the
road closures) and opposition of some local
businesses meant that this proposal was abandoned.
This is the reason why the Park is still
crisscrossed by roadways - little used but in some
instances a safety hazard. Work is still being done
with Sheffield City Council to make these roads
safer. Maintenance
of other city owned open spaces The Landscape
Services Department continues to mow the land owned
by the Housing Services, Leisure and Education
departments in the Heeley District. * See the
research by Professor Bradshaw in the 1970s and
1980s on the subject of establishing trees in
derelict land (the land in Heeley could be so
described even though it has been grassed over for
almost 2 decades). Such research identified the
supervision of the labour force as the main problem
- planting trees is very hard work and it is easy
to end up with dead plants without proper on-site
and in the storage yard supervision. The project has
been centred on community involvement - from the
earliest site planning stages it has been the main
factor in deciding how the site should develop (see
user needs in the section on planning
the design).
Community involvement was at a high level at the
start of the project when the Park was being
devised, but as has been the experience almost
everywhere with community-based schemes, it has
proved difficult to sustain. The Park Users Group
has held two meetings and only a few members of the
community were present. To overcome this and to
build on the initial success of involving the local
community in the park design process, satellite
areas of the Park have been identified and small,
very local groups are being encouraged to formulate
their requests. It is known that local people are
happy with the Park from feedback through the Park
workers "on the ground". It is well used on a daily
basis, and they may not want to give any more time
to discussing the Park - in part this is borne out
by the contrasting high level of local interest in
relation to developing Phase 3 (the site adjacent
to Phase 1 and 2 sites) - this has generated a lot
of local interest and meetings have been very well
attended. Clearly not all
of the wishes/views of the community could be met
in creating the Park, but the top priority of the
community which was the provision of dog waste bins
has been met and has proved very successful. ( Dog
owners in the main now carry plastic bags to pick
up their dog's waste and they do put it in the bins
which are well spread out across the site - it is
noticeable that there are only a very few
antisocial dog owners now in Heeley - a lesson for
those many other communities who survey after
survey say that dog waste is the main problem in
their streets and parks). The Trust sees
an increasing provision of training/education
funding as the way forward. The City Farm has a
long history or running horticultural training;
from 1999 training in amenity landscape work i.e.
park and plant maintenance has also been possible.
Under the "New
Deal" arrangements for previously unemployed people
it is now possible to be employed for one year
while receiving training. This possibility is being
looked at by the Trust in connection with park
maintenance and management. Rehabilitation
and maintenance of the rest of the built fabric in
Heeley Thom White, who
trained in Sheffield University as a landscape
architect, has also been working for a year with
Sheffield Hallam University Estates Department on
the development of a landscape maintenance team.
The intention is to form a team of increasingly
skilled workers (as they go through the associated
training courses) who will be available to give a
face-lift to local streets ( the scheme is intended
cover areas of Sharrow and later on Heeley).
The proposed
face-lift involves: It is
anticipated that in order to do a proper job on
each property it will cost £4,000 per
property. The intention is that the work is funded
by local landlords paying into the scheme and
through renewal area monies. As the scheme is being
developed various incentives are being offered to
persuade landlords to join in (e.g. 2 properties
for the price of one, if one property is within the
area of the scheme and one is outside that area).
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Prepared by STEP on behalf of DTA - Yorkshire and Humberside Region |
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**Heeley
Millennium Park