City Strategy 2005-10
12 priorities:
- Strong economy
- Vibrant city centre
- Well connected
- High employment and high skills in a learning city
- An exceptional cultural and sporting city
- Attractive, successful neighbourhoods
- Great place to grow up
- Good health and well being for all communities
- Low crime
- Environmental excellence
- An inclusive and cosmopolitan city
- Well run and well regarded
City Centre Strategy:
Development of a project called ‘Heart of the City’ to
remodel the city centre-
- building the centre’s economic role
- creating a centre recognised as a place for learning, culture, retail, leisure, and living;
- making the centre more accessible
- bringing high quality public spaces to all parts of the centre.
Key projects were:
- the Heart of the City project; a group of public realm projects, including the Peace Gardens and the Millennium Galleries, designed to improve attractions in the centre
- the new Retail Quarter; revamping the retail environment in the city centre
- Sheffield Gateway Station; improving the look of and access to the main station
- City Hall and Barkers Pool, refurbishing the old City Hall to create a cultural and conference venue within a mixed-use area
- Castlegate, mixed-use developments in the city’s historic ‘gateway’
- creating user-friendly pubic and private transport networks in and around the centre
- a new e-campus for Sheffield Hallam University.
This plan was drawn up to provide a basis for public sector
investment in infrastructure which, it was hoped, would increase the confidence
of the private sector to commit their own investment
Sheffield cannot compete on the same footing with nearby
regional capitals such as Leeds and Manchester, which have become the dominant
marketplaces for professional firms.
The main innovation in terms of
Sheffield’s economic strategy has been to work more closely with the city’s two
respected universities, the University of Sheffield, and Sheffield Hallam
University. The current policy is therefore to develop the commercial potential
of Sheffield.
Sheffield is still a manufacturing city, with over 12% of
the working population employed in the manufacturing sector in 2005 (ONS).17 By
cooperating with the local universities, the Regional Development Agency is
attempting to address the economy’s over-reliance on vulnerable and slow-growth
sectors through its focus on cluster and incubator concepts in high-growth
sectors (Crouch and Hill, 2004).
Four new sectors continually emerge to become the focus of
Sheffield’s economy:
- advanced manufacturing (linked to the city’s steelmaking expertise)
- biomedical and healthcare (with a specialisation in surgical blades linked to steelmaking and knife production)
- creative and digital industries (linked to the Cultural Industries Quarter in the city centre)
- sports science and technology (linked to the Lower Don Valley sports infrastructure)
- Promoted by the Regional Development Agency and the local authority, are a number of science and skill based initiatives
- Advanced Manufacturing Park - It is a key achievement in the economic recovery of the city, an example of how both industrial expertise and the local universities can generate economic activity for the city.
- Cultural Industries Quarter- now employs some 3,000 people and constitutes the central plank of the city’s creative industries activity.
- E-campus- a project to generate an e-business cluster in the city-centre.
- Science Park
- Inward investment initiatives - provided hundreds of low-skilled jobs for local residents, a necessary counterpart to the focus on high-skilled ‘knowledge’ jobs.
- Sheffield First for Investment- to promote the city and attract new businesses to locate there.