Vision for artistic takeover at once-notorious city estate
ART IS already making its presence felt at Park Hill, the modernist estate towering above Sheffield railway station that was once a byword for urban deprivation, but now new multimillion plans are due to take its cultural transformation even further.
In recent years, developer Urban Splash has regenerated much of what is the largest listed structure in Europe into fashionable apartments, while the S1 Artspace organisation, which provides studios for creative individuals and stages shows, has been based in The Scottish Queen, a oncenotorious pub at Park Hill.
The S1 team has moved to a garage in the middle of the estate as its temporary home for the next five years – as work takes place on creating a much grander space for the organisation, which was founded by a group of Sheffield artists back in 1995.
The interim base, which will eventually be knocked down, is next to the 7,200 sq m wing of disused flats that is earmarked to become the Park Hill Art Space – a 600 sq m gallery in a new extension, along with studios for at least 50 people, an education area and accommodation for visiting artists.
Stephen Escritt, strategic development director of S1 Artspace, is originally from York and moved to Sheffield two-and-a-half years ago having worked at the British Museum and the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where he helped to mastermind its £13.5m expansion a decade ago. He says he is hugely excited about the proposals for the new space, which is hoped to be completed by 2023/24, a timeline governed by important funding rounds set by Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
“It will be like a gallery in a park,” he says. “There was always a proposal, right at the beginning, to have some kind of cultural amenity here in the very first masterplan done before S1 was involved. We’re implementing that, in a way.
“It’s not going to be on the same scale as Baltic in Gateshead, say, but from a gallery point of view it will be a bit like Nottingham Contemporary.”
The cost of the scheme was originally put at £21m but Escritt says the final bill is likely to be less.
Over the Pennines, Manchester is getting The Factory, a £110m arts and theatre centre backed with £78m of government funding.
“Look at what’s happened over the last 10 to 15 years – you’ve got Nottingham Contemporary, The Hepworth in Wakefield, Baltic, Tate Liverpool,” Escritt says. “Everywhere has seen the value of investing in art as a catalyst. We are doing the same here.
“The main core cities of the north – Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle – all get a lot more money per year, per head from the Arts Council going into their National Portfolio Organisations than Sheffield. We get something like £6 a head, and most of the others get between £20 and £30 a head. And that’s because we’ve got some great organisations here, but compared to some of these other big cities we haven’t got that same mass and I think we’re trying to address that.”
A joint planning application with Urban Splash is to be submitted by the end of the year, preceded by an exhibition of the blueprints in September. S1 has always appeared confident about the scheme – that it is a matter of when, not if. “It feels like there’s a momentum behind it,” he says.
Escritt has witnessed the revivifying effect artists can bring, citing East London districts like Shoreditch as an example.
“Sheffield is a very creative place and you’ve got an art school producing graduates, a big community of artists and all the existing studio complexes have long waiting lists. Having artists in a city brings a certain force that is incredibly valuable.”
Disused flats in what was once one of Yorkshire’s most notorious housing estates may soon be transformed into a new cultural centre. Richard Blackledge reports.