ECCOnoob

H&M, New Look, River Island, Next, Tk Maxx, M&S, Sports Direct, Jd-Sports, Monki, Weekday, Blacks, YSM, Sa-kis, Clarks, Sketchers, Dichmann and Shoe Zone are all in the city centre.

What about things like heat and light and water and property rental and insurance costs. What about replacement scissors, blades, combs, sterilising fluid, hair styling products, cleaning products. This is not just some bloke with a plastic chair and a cheap Poundland buzz cutter. Even the smallest simplest business operation has far more overheads than people think.

But it IS normal. Imposing your dinosaur backward thinking ways onto the child is certainly not going to help them be prepared for their life if in their future adulthood. You need to quickly realise that the current generation of school children have never known life without the existence of a smartphone. They've never know life before the existence of mainstream broadband internet. They've never known life without instant delivery services, remote shopping, 24-hour access to everything, self checkouts, online forums and virtual chat rooms...... They will be entering a world where by the time they reach working age, it will not be uncommon to see vehicles driving themselves, autonomous delivery operations, workplaces where remote and virtual meetings are the default setting, option of working remotely from home is an expected right in employment regulations, the ability to use online resources, app based business tools, keyboarding and use of touch screen technology will be absolute mandatory. Nobody is suggesting for a minute that face-to-face human contact and the tactile needs of us mortal species will not be met. It will just be done in different ways just as things have evolved time and time before. The way people make friendships, the way people build relationships is all different and just because something is virtual does not make it any less real or relevant to those part of it - no matter how many times you try and protest otherwise. You may feel very strongly about such issues but it is misguided. Why should you impose your own quite frankly absurd position on others. The world is moving on. Time to stop forcing against it. Coronavirus may well have sped up the process but the direction of travel was set decades before that. Take a look at some of the BT archives, good grief even in the 60s there was serious discussions and prototypes regarding some vast network of information all connected by computer and talks about video calling and home working. Some of us were doing such things well before anyone have even heard of 'Wuhan". It aint going to stop now.

What stations do you like that have good news bulletins?

But as with all things, they dont instantly start off being "good quality". Let's not get caught up in the cosy nostalgia. There was plenty of crap on TV back then. Those great variety shows you speak were not all smash hits. For every Morecambe and Wise or Two Ronnies there equally were plenty like Russ Abbot or Bobby Davro or Shane Richie or Little and Large. There was plenty of cheap superficial dumb down gameshows, slapstick, lame gags and dubious sketches even then. These shows may well have got millions of viewers but given there was only two or three channels to pick from it was hardly a great achievement. The same sort of rose tinted discussion applies to my own generation with lots of my contemporaries fondly banging on about the "great" Saturday night television of the 1990s mourning the loss of so called 'proper' shows like new faces, bullseye, stars in their eyes, game for a laugh, you bet, pets win prizes, gladiators, Noel's house party........ but a quick look back on the internet and one soon realises it really wasn't that good. In fact applying a direct equivalent no better nor worse than the sort of things people either love or complain about now. Every Generation has 'their moment' but time trickles on and inevitably the preceding one starts whinging and moaning and making criticisms about the choices and tastes of the current one.

Why don't you ask the candidate. Do we know if there was available companies to undertake such a large job within the relevant time frames? Do we know whether they were competitive in price when compared to rival printers? Is it considered more a priority for a candidate to be mindful of their expenditure balanced against picking a more expensive supplier just because they happen to be local.... Only they can really answer I guess.

Or it could buy you a 6 bedroom 4 bathroom house in London: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/121743302#/?channel=RES_BUY Like with all these things, if someone chooses to live right in the centre in one of the hottest and trendiest districts they expect to pay a premium and get less for the money. It's always same in any other city. A studio apartment in the heart of town attracts a price tag equivalent to a 3 or 4 bedroom home in the suburbs. Like I said earlier, it's all about how frivolous someone wants to be. A £ million used wisely could enable someone to live modestly but comfortably without working for the rest of their lives. It could enable someone to make those big purchases such as property or cars without impacting their salary or getting into long term debts. It could be life-changing for those already in financial arrangements and pay off all of their balances at a stroke. People could go the Michael Carroll or Viv Nicholson route but they are generally the ones who lead to going back to having nothing.

Got there ahead of me. I was just about to say the same thing. It very much depends on how overambitious one wants to be. You could literally put 1 million in a basic bank account, do absolutely nothing and withdraw out a more than average £20,000 a year for 50 years. For those later in life that annual 'tax free salary' amount increases all the time. Plus given the fact most people will be smart enough to put such high amount of money into an account or investment that works far better, I would agree that most would live very comfortably even more so if someone chooses to carry on working full or part-time. They could use it to set their entire lives up for them. All the "big purchases" that we all have to endure in life could be taken care of with whatever surplus salary ready to be enjoyed on the treats, spoils and luxuries. On the flip side, it people are stupid enough to blow it all on uber luxury holidays, flashy cars and properties without keeping some behind for a rainy day or retaining some sort of other continual income....that's their choice.

City centre sprawl is what the new development is trying to to change. For years our shopping has always been far too spread out. Back in the day I remember being dragged through Castle house, up High Street, up Fargate, round to Cole Brothers, out the back and all the way down the Moor to Atkinsons many a time. Now like many other cities, the core shopping area is being condensed. To me, we don't need the 'old market area' to be kept alive for shopping, it's entire purpose is changing as is the rest of that part of town. Its evolving and redeveloping into residential, leisure and social, which will flow through nicely onto other mirroring development along Shalesmoor and into Kelham Island. I wouldn't say there is little around Pond Street, its surrounded by several large University buildings, new residential, new office buildings.... Again, it's just a different purpose to what we were used to in the past. Now I do agree the train station is a little out of the way, but in my experience that is very common in lots of cities, often because the rail stations were built up to a century prior to the modern day city layout. Manchester Piccadilly is a good hoof away from the primary core area as are places like Leicester, Newcastle, York, Norwich, Liverpool, Nottingham and most of the major London terminous. To me, the the biggest hurdle we have here is our geography. Something we cannot really do much about. We are famed for being built on seven hills and this of course makes, what elsewhere, could be a simple straight line walk into a much more off-putting challenge. I don't actually think the straight line distance is as long as people believe it to be. I feel expanding the tram network internally around the city centre will be far too disruptive and costly. Instead we could go the Singapore, Hong Kong, Toronto or Monaco method by simply creating cut through walkways or linked building pathways through some of the bigger hills, installing escalators/moving walk or lift access between different gradient. In theory, such could fit well with the obvious plan to keep vehicles out of the central area and could be easier to install alongside the redevelopment work. It has sort of already been done with The Light building or beneath St. Paul's Tower. It could be done again down Howard Street to the Station, the bus interchange cutting up onto to High Street or maybe even Leopold/church Street down to Shalesmoor. However, as with anything that involves public pathways, open escalators or underpasses, there is always the risk of scumbag element vandalising, urinating or generally congregating which turns it into something people seek to avoid.....What's the old phrase, we can never have anything nice.

Who the hell do you think provides employment pays wages to the staff ? Perhaps the owners shouldn't bother eh and just see how better off the staff are then.

What about if someone nicks your wallet. I can cancel my cards in a moment, you try stopping that thief from spending hard cash. What about if you lose some cash. I can get a replacement bank card pretty swiftly without problem. You try going to the bank and getting them to replace that missing tenner that 'fell out' of your purse onto the ground. You go and see how easy it is to prove you didn't just spend it. That looks like a couple of examples of cash failures. It's not infallible. I agree with others that the second part of your post is nothing more than baseless paranoia. Also pretty insulting to many of the older generation who are more than capable and do use contactless or phone based payments. They are not excluded from trendy coffee shops as you suggest. It's only people like yourself clinging onto the past who are excluding yourself from the businesses. Your choice. To many businesses cash is a burden. It is cumbersome, complicated and filled with risks in it's handling. The cost of managing, securing and transporting it can often far outweigh the cost of simply having an off-the-peg card machine and some app based accounting software. That is why many of the smaller more independent businesses are starting to favour cashless operations. Why should they incur additional hassle and expenditure just to appease what is very clearly becoming a minority

I literally have no idea what you're on about. Are you suggesting that our elderly are so infirm and so incapable that they simply cannot adapt to any possible changes to processes, technology or society. They have absolutely no friends, neighbours, relatives, acquaintances, support groups, carers or even the businesses themselves who they could turn to if they need guidance. Are they also so completely inept and incapable of life management that they cannot possibly take the time to make enquiries, read a leaflet or find out information as to how to do something. Stop being so dramatic. You make yourself sound ridiculous and quite frankly insulting to the millions of elderly people who have more coped and adapted perfectly well to all sorts of changes over the decades. God sake, I know people in their 80s and 90s who understand the basic concepts of a contactless debit card or how to use their mobile phone. Anyone younger than that has absolutely no excuse. ATM Cashpoints have been around from the 60s, electronic debit and credit cards since the 80s, the internet has been mainstream since the 1990s, smartphones have been on the market for 15 years, even self checkouts have been commonplace for nearly a decade.... If they are genuinely that detached and incapable of dealing with changes in modern life, quite frankly they should not be managing their own affairs.

Why is that any different to elderly people having to fill in paperwork? Having to make appointments over a telephone? Having to respond to written correspondence? Mistakes can be made just as easy whether it's analogue or digital. If the next generation of pensioners and elderly have had 30, 40, 50 + years of filling in online prescriptions or dealing with 'digital information' or reacting to emails all their lives, it becomes second nature and of course any risk of so-called confusion or mistakes will be no different to a current pensioner filling in details on a piece of paper or appropriately responding to a letter which similarly will have been something they have done all of their lives second nature. Everything evolves. Nobody is expecting pensioners to be masters in computer literacy but let's be realistic here. We are talking about basic things such as electronic debit/credit cards which have been in existence for nearly 40 years. We are talking about telephone or online banking which has been in existence for at least 20 + years. Long retired or not, for the vast majority of elderly they have had at least a quarter of their lives to familiarise themselves and adapt. I'm sure many elderly grew up in an era of of coal fires, manually operated car chokes, rotary dial phones, buying groceries from Mrs Miggins corner shop or travelling on buses with their paper passes. Doesn't automatically mean they haven't managed to adapt to using modern day central heating or driving modern day cars or using a contactless travel passes or calling on mobile phones or coping with the trials and tribulations of modern day superstore. Why should banking or government services such a doctor's be any different? Times are constantly changing as they will for our current generation in 40 years time. We all have a duty to adapt, learn and evolve. If they don't know how they go get someone to help them.

Jarvis is only bellyaching because there's an election coming up and he's trying to show he is is doing something.... Sheffield might have been one of those who lost out on the bus money but they did appear to get a huge whack of money to keep the tram network running and make improvements. A child of 5 would understand it was highly unlikely we'd get everything we want so maybe he should start focus on the good part. To be frank always thought his regional mayor role was always a useless waste of space from day one.

Most modern-day casino 'bandits' can easily be adapted for card or contactless. They already have functions to accept credit vouchers or even bespoke tokens which are given out by the gambling venue. Lets not forget the vast amount of gaming which already happened electronically by bank account debit cards and credit cards. There is a whole industry of online bookmaking, lotteries and casinos so I hardly think that is a big concern. Same with modern day jukeboxes many of which now now contactless card points on them. As do lots of confectionery or drinks vending machines these days. You 'can't imagine public transport without cash' well you certainly need to look around a bit more given it has been an established thing in many cities across the world for at least two decades. Travelcards, contactless payments, passes, carnets, auto ticket barriers, online booking, mobile ticketing..... really isn't a new thing. There are entire bus operators who've phased out cash payments altogether. There are others that have a strict no change policy with cash going into a sealed box with no driver interaction. There are systems where payment was entirely pre-boarding with tickets being bought from shops or online in advance. There are entire underground systems where the whole process is automated with not a cash exchange or human being in sight. Now as for your kids wanting sweets and pop, you do know there are pre-load debit cards out there specifically designed for use by children with controls. They have been on the market for a good few years. There are entire school lunch operations which are all done by pupils having an electronic card with parents topping up the account in advance online or prepaid. Most banks offer children's accounts with debit cards by least early teenage. More and more kids are becoming accustomed to online ordering, filling in Amazon wish lists at Christmas, in game app purchasing on their games consoles...... just how long do you think it will be before kids have a default setting of cashless operations by the time they hit school-age. Seriously why are people constantly trying to fight this. It is not some great battle against "The Man". It's just progress. The world is always evolving. Technology evolves. How we live evolves. We don't still go round trading sheep and goats return for 20 firelogs. We don't still walk around with our coin purse clutched in our hands ready to exchange a few groats in return for a couple of bags of apples. Unless you are a complete moron or have criminal intent nobody is keeping bags of cash at home under the mattress. We all rely on some form of banking to contribute to modern society. I don't understand those who somehow take pride in skirting such a basic function. It's like they are asking to make their own life harder for themselves. I certainly don't feel any obligation for the rest of the world to dumb down just to accommodate such people. As cryptocurrency starts to become ever more mainstream there is going to be even less demand for hard physical cash. We are already seeing some of the more hipster pubs accepting bitcoin payment. The first government that actually takes step to bring in an official properly regulated version of blockchain and that's it, there really will be no going back.

I have just been having a nosey at the existing facility in Romania. Now bear in mind there will be obviously a price reduction for the Eastern European countries, I have done a little bit of number crunching. Based on current conversion rates, entry to such a facility for adults ranges between £11.50 for 3 hours or £17 for all day. For kids it ranges from £6.50 for 3 hours up to around £14 all day. That's before you get onto ancillary costs like snacks and drinks or extras such as towel rental at £5.50 a pop or flip flop rental at £7 per pop. Soon quickly adds up for a family of two adults with their 2.4 children. As I say, that's just a fag packet calculation based on conversion of prices. Chances are what's to be built over here would have a premium on top of that simply because land values and and labour is so much more expensive. I'll predict entry fees are at least £20 a head if not more. That's of course if such a project actually happens anyway. Noted from the article that is already been delayed previously and is now being delayed again by another 2 years. Not beyond the realms of possibility that in 18 months all work grinds to a halt in the project goes bust. Happened before multiple times. Its interesting that we have a thread filled with people declaring that the "ordinary man in the street" can no longer be able to afford day trips to the local seaside while seemingly simultaneously complaining about why Sheffield hasn't been been proactive enough to build something like this facility on our doorsteps. Where is this sudden demand with all these people just waiting to flock there and threw their money that what seems to me to be a glorified Metrodome or perhaps Center Parcs without the accommodation. ...... make your mind up people. Based on some of the comments on this forum, We are either so skint that we can barely afford an ice cream in the park or we are so unhappy because the council have not spent multi-million-pounds on a fancy indoor tropical water park where we are just waiting to spend £20 £30 entry fees on a regular basis.

Let's be very clear here Anna, what you have proposed and your comparisons with Brisbane is far more than just a little bit of 'outdoor swimming'. Perhaps if you have suggested a simple outdoor swimming pool I might have had a different thought process. As it is, you seem to be advocating some huge mega tropical complex under a roof to which I don't see any sort of comfortable fit nor long-term commercial viability for. Nor do I think it will even stop the dangers of swimming in unsuitable places. Idiots will always be idiots no matter what facilities they have round. Ultimately, we are not and never will be some prime tourist destination. As for your final comment, it seems dangerous to me. Oh yeah, sod the ice caps and polar bears - let's embrace global warming, the thing that most of the civilised world is desperately trying to stop occurring. How silly will we look spending great expense and effort in abolishing our use of fossil fuels, going electric, eating plant-based and reducing our carbon emissions whilst simultaneously jumping into our swimming costumes, getting out there celebrating the destruction of the ozone layer just cos it gives us a nice heatwave....

....but but but just think how fantastic it will be if you could recreate that seaside ambiance right here in the heart of our city centre. Hey we can even dupe council taxpayers to fund it and put a retractable roof on it for when the weather is miserable for the 11 months of the year. The Union Jack short wearing, hairy beer bellied brigade could hit the surf all year round a mere 10-minute bus ride from home and still within stumbling distance of Greggs an't Bankers Draft A sure fire winner I'm sure we all agree. Yorkshire's own Brisbane.

I'm not talking about Hathersage Anna. I am talking about places like Rother Valley where they have an entire Watersports Centre open in the right season. I am talking about the fact that unlike Brisbane we do not have a year round pleasant climate so any such outdoor facilities will have a limited shelf life throughout the year with the exception of a tiny number of hardened regular users who alone certainly will not pay enough for it's upkeep. I'm talking about the fact that if people want to go swimming either for exercise, training or more leisure activity facilities are available in various places in and around the City. I really don't get why you are so obsessed over what Brisbane has. I couldn't think of any more ridiculous and totally irrelevant comparator when it is a totally different lifestyle, climate and way of life. What you propose may well have a novelty factor and a bit of a buzz for 2-3 months of the year but what exactly is going to happen with it in the middle autumn or throughout the winter when no one touches it with a barge pole. Let's also not forget that the only reason that Brisbane's 'streets beach' existed was because the land was already under redevelopment following expo 1988 and it was also heavily funded by two major sponsors, the former of which was an International corporation. Now given your very apparent dislike for grubby hands of capitalists are you going to be very happy about let's say, Amazon's billboards plastered all over or Starbucks or Nestlé? Or as usual do you just expect taxpayers to cough up. It's deluded. You claim people won't be able to afford days out at the seaside 90 minutes away when they are still flocking abroad on their cheap bargain basement flights to exploit low wages and seasonal pay in countries with far better weather. Just take a look at the crowds surging through Heathrow and Gatwick and Manchester right now. You ain't telling me they are all multi billionaire businessman flying to their private islands.

Oh come off it. It's a well-known fact that Britain by it's very nature has very limited distance between the sea and it's inland towns. Good grief, point to point it could be no more than 100 miles at most. Cleethorpes is about 90 minutes and 70 miles away. Hull is about the same. A little further time and you have Scarborough, Filey and Bridlington but still less than 100 miles. There is Skegness and Ingoldmells. Even along the Atlantic side, it may take a little longer in terms of travel time but distance wise still well within 100 miles and arguably day trip category...... Try living some backwater in rural Canada, the USA, France or Spain where the nearest major town is a 3, 4, 6 hour drive away. As for coastline, you are looking at several hours flight. You talk about Brisbane but it's a totally different climate, lifestyle and way of living. We already have several artificial places for swimming. We already have a large outdoor water sports facility on our doorstep. What makes you so sure that some landscaped false beach and lido in the centre of Sheffield would actually have sufficient draw and customers? The way that Brits like holiday "at the seaside" is totally different to our neighbours around the world. Why does it need to be faux created in the city when the real thing already exists less than a couple hours away.

Was thinking something similar myself. Seems to be quite a regular pattern occurring whenever these sorts of closures are announced...... Lots of nostalgia, wailing, mourning and upset from supposed 'devoted fans' but how many of them were actually going through the door or and putting money in the tills on a regular basis. How many of the so-called legendary acts and big names have barely mentioned the place as soon as they got big enough to ditch and go follow the bright lights elsewhere. It's a business at the end of the day. So is a landlord. The Leadmill don't own the premises. If their business is viable they will go and find somewhere else. If they've not been paying their bills then hardly a great surprise they are being asked to leave.. Personally, I don't see it as some great loss. It has a little bit of history but to be honest it was never really the top of my top venues back in the heyday. I felt there was far better in the city. Let's be frank here, Leisure and entertainment is a fickle industry and always evolving. The tastes and trends and popular joints have moved on. Take a look at Kelham Island, take a look at some of the more 'hipster' venues which are thriving. Look at the rise of non drinking establishments. The rise in gaming lounges, the rise in late bars, The rise in mixed venues and food courts, The rise in on-site brewerys, all offering alternative to 'traditional clubs'. Compare those to places popular 10, 20 , 40 years ago. How does the Leadmill footfalls compare, how's it cope with competition, where is its viability? Where is its trade? Anyone can do some retweeting or posting on Facebook. But if they're not translating to real-world, consistent and sufficiently paying customers..... it's meaningless. Who says?

Debenhams went into administration... TJ Hughes went into administration.... Van Mildert is owned by Sports Direct... LK Bennett went into administration and is now nothing more than a concession... Byron burger went into administration... House of Fraser went into administration and even had to close it's Oxford Street and Leeds branches. John Lewis very publicly set out their losses in Sheffield and many other stores around the country including it's brand new shiny Birmingham branch. We already have a Matalan less than one mile outside the city centre boundary. Argos is in Sainsbury's and is purposely designed with the needs and facilities for its modern day customer base. We have have 5 different art galleries within the city centre New Look is not closed down it is just moved to a new unit on the Moor..... Why don't you actually go into the city centre and take a look at what actually is there and what is being developed and built right now. From your posts you seem to be totally unaware and at least 5 years out of date. Now, whilst I agree with the point you are making regarding the opening of certain specific streets, I certainly do not agree that the fundamental viability of this clipper bus hinge upon long defunct businesses and loss making retail stores. As I've said on other threads, the purpose of city centres is dramatically changing and any viability of the free bus service needs to be adapted to serve the new regime of leisure, social residential and let's face it predominantly student heavy and young professional economies. It's about providing to the future generations not harping on about the past.

Ha. Got there ahead of me. I think that particular poster is stuck in some time dimension.

I did not know that. Looking at Google it seems they've constantly denied they are are Scientologists but that's not what seemingly was happening with in their now defunct School. If they are part of that cult then quite frankly Rock deserves to have gone harder. As AnnaB has said earlier, there is still some doubt as to whether this was all some big staged stunt. If it's really is genuine, my gut is that Smith is going to come off worse down the line.

Yes it is. Comedy and jokes by their very nature all have a target and punchline. Everyone could potentially cop for it. Fat people, skinny people, black people, white people, gay people, straight people, asexuals, people with disabilities, people with different hair colour, politicians, celebrities, street beggars through to company directors. Context and delivery is the key issues. Comedians can't be pussyfooting around scared to produce any jokes about anyone or anything in the constant fear that they will offend. Exactly the same principle could apply to any sort of written scripts, dramatised scene or musical lyrics. It is well established for decades in award shows that the primary host and or guest presenters will undertake some form of directed jokes or roasting of the vip's in the room. To me, there is no harm in these over privileged - overpaid dahhhlings of stage and screen getting a little bit of a jibing once a year. Dents their ego and brings them back down to reality. Regardless of the nature of the medical condition, Smith's wife was more than happy to to broadcast it to the public on her social media account and no doubt got a few nice magazine deals or interviews telling the world about her issues. Should be prepared to toughen up and take a little bit of jibing from a comedian about it. As for Smith himself, if he really was that disgusted and offended by the targeted attack on his wife, after of course laughing about it first when the cameras were on him, there will be 100 ways to deal with it quietly and dignified without resorting to such embarrassing and childish acts of violence. Slippery slope to be over sanitizing every single thing and my only hope is next year they get an even more controversial and outspoken host. Problem is though, Hollywood is so fickle and driven by the ego filled celeb entourage and public perceptions on the twitterati they'll be too scared to.