planning objections and historic information

Sirs,

At a time when the Regional Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward, and Sheffield Council are justifiably proud of the efforts they have made to establish a high technology metalworking cluster on the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Orgreave, I am dismayed to find that they may be willing to extinguish an existing and equally important centre of excellence in metalworking at Portland Works. Whilst the building, in part, may be preserved by conversion to flats, the jobs and skills within it will not. I am currently undertaking a PhD at Sheffield University, studying the historical role of steel and developing new techniques for processing steel. Nowhere else, not even in the University or on the AMP, can I find the necessary skills required to help me in my work. I can find them at Portland Works. I can take metal ingots there, have them indelibly engraved with reference numbers, have the same ingots worked down to strip and then that strip made into tools and cutting edges. Under the same roof.

I am not the first to use their services: almost a hundred years ago Harry Brearly took his first stainless ingots there to have test cutlery manufactured. Does Sheffield really want to throw away such a heritage for the sake of a few more flats ?

Yours faithfully,

Stephen Cater.