Sheffield, the largest city in Europe..

[glennpickard]

I have worked at airports all my life. Lots of pollution from ground traffic and aircraft (but jobs also). If you have transport, nothing to stop Sheffielders going after those jobs either. Huge scrap going on now in London just deciding where the extra runway is going to go for the south east. Noise and pollution is the concern. Let someone else manage it, Sheffield had it for over a 100 years !

 

Sheffield has very good train service to the south and west, and M1 close by.

 

The city also has an advantage in that it has Manchester, East Midlands, Leeds and Doncaster airports surrounding it, all within about 60 minutes drive. I believe they all have public transport to Sheffield ? Anyway the noise and pollution is mainly elsewhere, as aircraft are reaching cruise altitude when they pass over Sheffield

[mattleonard]

I think the question exposes the problems with very ropey definitions of city sizes, which typically show Sheffield weighing ludicrously above its punch. Thinking realistically, Sheffield's a great place, and thriving in many ways, but it really doesn't need a huge airport. I think the supposed necessity of such things is more about lack of confidence in Sheffield's actual strengths and an attempt to provide the necessary gimmicks to make Sheffield into Manchester - which isn't going to happen either way, and should never be a measure of success anyway.

 

There's a big history of white elephant projects intended to kick-start Sheffield into some imaginary premier league of Northern cities (which generally means Manchester and Leeds) and just quickly turns into a big embarrassment. There are also plenty of great projects which have been motivated by simply providing a good service to Sheffield, rather than some regional jealousy, and which have been a huge success.

[Markstevo]

I see absolutely no point in having a small/med airport which only flies to a handful of places it's unlikely I'll be going to. We are well served with several medium sized airports, a large airport (Manc) just over an hour away, and pretty good links to Heathrow.

 

Within 2 hrs drive (or public transport) you can get to Manchester, Liverpool, East Midlands, Doncaster, Leeds, Birmingham. That'll do me.

Not forgetting Humberside too

[darylslinn]

It used to have an electric train service

 

Which should never have closed !

[Daven]

Which should never have closed !

 

Why is that ?

[Longcol]

The argument was that M/Hall was stifling the city centre's growth..I just remarked that Mancherster had Trafford just outside it but the centre seems quite vibrant compared to Sheff..why can Manchester do it but not Sheffield?

 

Perhaps because the greater Manchester conurbation is nearly 4 times the size of the Sheffield conurbation -

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

a fact nearly always overlooked on SF when comparing the two.

[apelike]

Sheffield, the largest city in Europe...without its own airport or any electric train services. Is this good, bad, or ugly?

 

Is it the largest City in size or population?

[sheff71]

We've already had an airport (and an international sports stadium) that have both been demolished within 25 years of being built - there just doesn't seem to be the required demand for these.

 

Having said that, setting up an airport with such limitations as it had, it was never going to work - at least at Donny they had the space to set it up properly, and when the M18 J3 link road opens (that's much more direct for the airport), it'll potentially be even quicker for Sheffielders to get there.

[Jonny5]

No airport isn't an issue. Manchester airport is an hour with a direct train.

 

The bigger issue is the slapdash approach to mass transit (electric rail/tram).

 

The traffic planners desperately want us on mass transit (rightly) but are faffing about with bus lanes and timetables when they should be concentrating on extending the Supertram to the South and increasing its current usage as well linking it to Chesterfield/Rotherham*/Barnsley.

 

I know money & routing is a factor but these are obstacles to be overcome and should not be constantly used as quick fire excuses.

 

 

 

 

*I believe that this is in progress. A good 20 years later than it should have been.

[AndrewC]

No airport isn't an issue. Manchester airport is an hour with a direct train.

 

The bigger issue is the slapdash approach to mass transit (electric rail/tram).

 

The traffic planners desperately want us on mass transit (rightly) but are faffing about with bus lanes and timetables when they should be concentrating on extending the Supertram to the South and increasing its current usage as well linking it to Chesterfield/Rotherham*/Barnsley.

 

I know money & routing is a factor but these are obstacles to be overcome and should not be constantly used as quick fire excuses.

 

*I believe that this is in progress. A good 20 years later than it should have been.

 

I'll admit you've correctly highlighted that money is a factor, but I think you're underplaying it as an obstacle. If SCC could get funding for all the supertram extensions they can dream of then they'd be built. Now. Financial and Political issues way above the heads of the council control all that.

 

And before we say, 'well Sheffield council need to be better at securing such money', just go and look at Leeds, or Birmingham; both cities commonly accepted as having better-quality, more business and government friendly councils in contrast to Sheffield, but both struggling to develop their mass transit properly (Birmingham's extensive heavy rail system aside). Birmingham's metrolink (?) is only just now getting the cross-city extensions it badly needed to connect up it's stations, and Leeds can't get anything. Trolley-busses the last I heard.