Community plea for ‘under-used’ building

A group of campaigners have urged Sheffield Council to work with them to convert an “under-used” building into a community hub.

Campaigners from ACORN Burngreave told council leader Tom Hunt that they have been running a “Take Back Vestry Hall” campaign since September and they were “unhappy” the building was still “massively underused”.

One said the two main reasons for that were the “high prices for room booking and the lack of community outreach or involvement to ensure it is filled”.

She said: “We believe Vestry Hall could and should be a community hub for Burngreave instead of a near empty husk which is at the moment best known in the area as a feeding place for pigeons.”

She asked Coun Hunt to meet with them to discuss the building’s future.

Other people also raised the issue of Burngreave – the “second most deprived ward in Sheffield” – not having a proper community hub (or a library) and called on the council leader to start a dialogue about Vestry Hall.

In response, Coun Hunt said the council was putting in place a new community buildings policy so there is an “open, fair, transparent and consistent process” to enable the management of community buildings.

He added the current fees and charges at Vestry Hall have been in place for quite some time – he also added that Burngreave had a volunteer-run library at Sobry House on Spital Hill.

He said council members and officers had a “fiduciary duty” to ensure council properties are managed financially effectively.

In the future, “a standard pricing methodology” will be put in place across council buildings.

Earlier this year, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that campaigners said residents had nowhere to go while Vestry Hall was “so underused”.

Mishanth Feinstein, a local organiser at community union ACORN, said then that they were campaigning for Vestry Hall to be free for community groups as it’s just “too expensive”. He said: “If you look into booking it for a couple of hours, it could cost you a £100. It’s unaffordable for local groups. We also want the community to run it.”

Vestry Hall, a grade-II listed building of Jacobean architecture, was built in 1846 to accommodate the Brightside Bierlow Vestry which was the organisation responsible for administering the Poor Law in this part of Sheffield.