John lewis

Its an iconic building, such a shame. Another casualty of this insidious epidemic.

They should turn it into a brothel to service all the hundreds of blokes who've spent lockdown slowly, increasingly hating their wives and girlfriends.

Call it John Holmes.

 

I have great memories of going to cole brothers as a child on trips to Sheffield, and still enjoyed to go there up until lockdown with my kids, guess it was a nice link to my childhood for me. I loved how it hadn’t changed in the 40 years i’d been going. Thats really sad, a great shop gone and no more living the memories.

 

or Hole Brothers ?

 

Post lockdown business opportunities, someones loss will be another persons gain, there will be winners and losers, just like an unwanted creampie.

 

Same for me. It's a link to my childhood when my mum took me. I can no longer see a reason for many people to go to Sheffield city centre now instead of Meadowhall. Coles brought people in and while they're in they'll look around, so other shops could survive too. Independent shops, quirky stuff, shops that couldn't get into meadowhall. But these shops don't attract enough business in their own right. They can survive because there's a passing trade from people who have made the journey for a quality department store and are willing to have a browse and spend their money at the independents too. Now the reason to drive in to the centre of Sheffield in the first place, which is never fun, has gone and the place is fk*ced. And if there's no one shopping there's no one going to the cafes or the restaurants or the pubs. We stripped the life out of our town by destroying the market years ago. And now Sheffield's gone. We can all go to Meadowhall and show our vaccine certificates as we file in.

 

I think even Meadowhall is going to struggle in current climes. Social distancing and keeping apart can't be the new norm. It's got to be a temporary means towards an end which is like what life used to be like. I hope.....

 

Coles and Redgates are my memories of Sheffield City Centre.

 

It’s saddened me, probably due to the personal connection but it was a bit of an institution in sheff.

City centres will re-emerge into something different, probably more residential with conversion from commercial, perhaps additional hospitality / restaurants. Once we are legally allowed to go within 2 metres of each other that is....

 

I do not think it is a victim of the pandemic all though it has not helped, it was in trouble long before the virus , the city centre of Sheffield has been on death row since the birth of Meadowhall , shoppers do not go into the city with its high priced parking & access problems , they cannot have it both ways , the investment went into the retail parks & the city centre has suffered . I think eventually City centres will become leisure centres , with pubs, restaurants & places of interests ( museums etc ) with a sprinkling of commercial business such as banks , solicitors etc .

 

In the 12-month period to 25 January 2020, the John Lewis Partnership generated revenues of £10,151m, profit of £146m with net debt at £2,451m (2019, £2,682m) - when a company is run on this basis there is only one way it is going to go - JL took their eye off the ball with regards to the increment of online vs in store and are now paying for it big time - rather like the violin players on the Titanic they played on and ignored the disaster that was fast approaching - I am sad for all the staff that will lose their jobs but this could and should have been avoided if management had acted earlier instead of just waiting for the inevitable to happen.

 

Sheffield City centre has been a soulless sheet oyle for years. You come out of Railway Station and pass druggies and beggars in the entrance to the bus station. Then you go past the Odeon or Gala and head up into town past boarded up shops and more shady characters. Me and Laura find it an intimidating cold place.

 

Yes, I went to Sheffield for the first time in years a couple of years ago and was pretty shocked by how it looked. The nice part was from John Lewis around the Orchard Centre towards the Cathedral, and the rest looked a bit downtrodden.

I know shops are closing because of the move to on-line shopping etc., but unfortunately the shops themselves don't seem to want to counteract it. I presume they just see it as a way to reduce their overheads. I try to go to brick & mortar running shops to buy shoes but they only have a very small selection - the staff just tell me to order on-line. Just stay at home mate, with your computer.

 

Meadowhall has seen stores close as well, my niece lost her job when the Arcadia group went belly up.

 

And yet Sheffield is in the top ten most searched areas for places to live.

 

It must have the full monty.

 

I do find that amazing. I lived there for about 6 years and though there were sporadic signs of life, it never really seemed to manage it. I've not been round the area for a very long time, but West One was seen as a landmark development at the time and had a few decent eateries and shops, but they all went one by one. The last time I went down Ecclesall Road, that had taken a big hit and was a shell of its prior status.

The centre had been poor for a long time, partly because it was one long row instead of a central grid and I knew the person back in the early 2000s tasked with trying to breath life into the city centre and though she tried and tried, she seemed to be blocked constantly, with officials or just backward business sentiment.

There are a couple of ok bits in there, but it's never seemed to be joined up. The winter gardens, though impressive, always seemed quite empty and the bars and restaurants round there just seemed to be largely for DLA staff in the new office blocks. Then you had Leopold Square tucked away and that felt a bit naff.

I thought there were plans years back to develop the area where the fire station was and have a central shopping "mall" sort of thing, but unless its happened recently, that didn't emerge at the time.

But maybe what surprised me most was the huge development around Kelham Island. There was a big push to claim more of that land and turn disused factories and warehouses into a new district. The last time I was there a few years ago, much of the heritage had just been razed to the ground and cheap nasty student flats had been thrown up instead. And of ones left to be developed, the old buildings still stood, but hadn't been touched, so I'm guessing developers wanted to knock those down too rather than preserve and renovate.

But overall, with no Debenhams or John Lewis... that city centre is really going to struggle to get footfall.

 

Reminds me of Bradford. I don't think things should be allowed to be knocked down unless the replacement is properly designed.

 

I think it is all about the West of the city. You get a village/town feel with the Peak District on one side and the amenities of a city nearby, all five minutes from your doorstep.

 

One of the things that pains me most is how easily we allow our architectural heritage in this country to be thrown away. I'm sure it happens in parts of other countries to some degree, some more than others, but so often a perfectly viable building is knocked down to be replaced by something "modern" in the name of laziness and cheapness.

A local community hospital is just getting knocked down near me. some of the more recent and modern extensions weren't especially sympathetic, but the central core was a stunning building with "onions"... lead covered rounded spires. It's (well, was) probably the most striking building within 2 miles (though the main building of Dulwich College in the village is pretty stunning), but its been ploughed stage by stage til the most beautiful part was the only part left standing. They could have even just kept the facade or the entrance building, but no, its all going. Instead we have an ugly red brick box school, an ugly red and glazed box medical centre and i think this final phase is a mix of medical and residential, which I suspect will be equally soulless and cheap looking.

Such a shame.