Pond Street: £50m Arena In Sheffield City Centre 'Could Be Built In Six Months'

[Anna B]

Sheffield needs a one stop centralised bus station more than it needs another arena. 

Dispersing the buses all over the city centre was never a good idea. It needs a rethink.

[RollingJ]

1 minute ago, Anna B said:

Sheffield needs a one stop centralised bus station more than it needs another arena. 

Dispersing the buses all over the city centre was never a good idea. It needs a rethink.

Apart from the fact that we have a bus station - underused because partly the access charges are too high, partly because of access problems created by continuous road closures, where would you put it?

[AndrewC]

A new arena in the city centre would be very welcome and go some way towards helping revitalise the city centre.

 

It's not a trend which has passed at all; several new city-centre arenas of varying size are either in planning/construction or have recently been built. With them come additional footfall for hospitality industries and it would help improve the image of Sheffield city centre as a place to be both for the local public and investors - a signal of confidence, if you like.

 

However; I'd question 2 things. Firstly, the notion that it would all only take 6 months and cost £50m is clearly conservative as far as predictions go. 'Pre-fabricated' only goes so far - on-site construction would still be 1-2 years at least I'd say.

Secondly, though it's a tempting spot (between the train station and Arundel Gate, potential for using the Odeon/O2 sites to develop a new throughfare down the hill to the arena etc.), I would say the site is pretty limited. Before the new offices were built by the ring road there was more room to play with but now it's quite tight.

 

 

I suspect this a nice idea - and the talk about it now makes it look like Sheffield is 'on the move' without actually doing much - but ultimately the feasibility study will probably shut the idea down. 

[AndrewC]

15 minutes ago, Anna B said:

Sheffield needs a one stop centralised bus station more than it needs another arena. 

Dispersing the buses all over the city centre was never a good idea. It needs a rethink.

I've never quite been convinced by this, at least not for larger cities. If your town centre is no more than a market square and a couple of streets then yes, your bus station might be the primary point of access & egress to all your bus routes, but as soon as you're talking about a centre more widely spread than that (say large town, small city) then you're really asking people to walk too far and a centralised bus station starts to lose it's importance. Ultimately, people are more likely to use the on-street stops that are near their destinations.

 

If you look at most large city centres in the UK, routes criss-crossing city streets between 3-4 smaller 'interchanges', i.e. primary pockets of bus stops is the norm and probably what most people want. Bus stations still exist primarily in those places merely as glorified 'coach parks' you might call them, and are rarely right in the centres - more often than not sat out to the edges of the city in the same way Sheffield's is.

 

As @RollingJ says above, where else would you place a large bus station in Sheffield other than where it is now?

 

 

There's obviously been lots of talk about which particular roads Sheffield uses these days - the removal of the Pinstone Steet routes caused a lot of uproar of course but it's all fairly fine margins - there are pros & cons of whichever routes it goes - but one major criticism I would make of Sheffield's bus routes is that virtually none of them serve the Train Station in any meaningful way.

[RollingJ]

1 minute ago, AndrewC said:

 

 

There's obviously been lots of talk about which particular roads Sheffield uses these days - the removal of the Pinstone Steet routes caused a lot of uproar of course but it's all fairly fine margins - there are pros & cons of whichever routes it goes - but one major criticism I would make of Sheffield's bus routes is that virtually none of them serve the Train Station in any meaningful way.

Agree with most of what you say above (snipped to save space), but there are largish towns/cities that have integrated  rail/bus stations  - Rotherham/Doncaster locally - and possibly others . Leeds, though, to take a 'localish' example is a good ten-minute walk - don't know about the bus journey times as I have never tried them - although there are buses fairly close.

 

Out of interest, where would you put bus stops (for those services that do use Sheaf Street)?

[AndrewC]

3 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

Agree with most of what you say above (snipped to save space), but there are largish towns/cities that have integrated  rail/bus stations  - Rotherham/Doncaster locally - and possibly others . Leeds, though, to take a 'localish' example is a good ten-minute walk - don't know about the bus journey times as I have never tried them - although there are buses fairly close.

 

Out of interest, where would you put bus stops (for those services that do use Sheaf Street)?

Well, maybe my 'line' was a little low then, but I'd still argue even those two fall in to that same category of, 'everything is walkable from the bus station for most people'. The moment you have a central urban area which is much bigger then the concept of a central bus station being much more use than on-street stops starts to fall down.

 

 

 

[RollingJ]

3 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

Well, maybe my 'line' was a little low then, but I'd still argue even those two fall in to that same category of, 'everything is walkable from the bus station for most people'. The moment you have a central urban area which is much bigger then the concept of a central bus station being much more use than on-street stops starts to fall down.

 

 

 

OK - so where do you put the stops on Sheaf Street?

[Guest makapaka]

They might be able to erect it in 6 months but how long does the pre-fabrication take.

 

you’re not building any 6500 seater stadiums in 6 months tell you that.

Edited November 3, 2022 by makapaka

[AndrewC]

1 hour ago, RollingJ said:

OK - so where do you put the stops on Sheaf Street?

Sorry, I missed that when you posted it first time.

 

I'm not sure what you mean though? In terms of buses serving the station, do you mean?

 

I wouldn't put any more stops on the ring road. I'm not sure what I'd do to be honest, just highlighting that clearly it's a weakness that very few bus services go near the station. Even to someone fairly fit and nimble, the walk down from Arundel Gate or across from the bus station is a slightly irritating slog. You have to ask yourself how many people are driving to the station car park (or all the way to their destination) because they don't fancy the 5-10 minute walk between the station and the bus stop.

 

I'd probably try and utilise Paternoster Row/Brown Street more personally.

[RollingJ]

1 hour ago, AndrewC said:

Sorry, I missed that when you posted it first time.

 

I'm not sure what you mean though? In terms of buses serving the station, do you mean?

 

I wouldn't put any more stops on the ring road. I'm not sure what I'd do to be honest, just highlighting that clearly it's a weakness that very few bus services go near the station. Even to someone fairly fit and nimble, the walk down from Arundel Gate or across from the bus station is a slightly irritating slog. You have to ask yourself how many people are driving to the station car park (or all the way to their destination) because they don't fancy the 5-10 minute walk between the station and the bus stop.

 

I'd probably try and utilise Paternoster Row/Brown Street more personally.

No problem - we all miss short sentences occasionally.

 

Exactly - buses serving the station.  I agree few buses go that close, but if you look at where most services go northwards, there is no current service that could realistically use Sheaf Street without a considerable 'dead mileage'  . and their is nowhere southwards that could be used - without reconfiguring the Station frontage - again. Yes, if you have a lot of luggage, the walk from Arundel Gate (or, at a pinch, even the Interchange is not exciting, but - and I use Sheffield Station a lot - I never see anyone walking from either point with a large volume of luggage.

 

Paternoster row/Brown Street are not realistically suitable, being fairly narrow, especially near the rail station.