Publicity!

Now Then magazine October issue (download here, look for page 4 on the pdf) has an article about the share issue for the upcoming purchase of the works.

Portland Works After Dark

Here are a couple of links to films of events we have hosted at Portland Works after dark!

http://www.youtube.com/user/HARMONICROOMS#p/u/22/TF8TShSBz0I
http://www.youtube.com/user/HARMONICROOMS#p/u/20/NTuoQ3RiKtU
http://www.youtube.com/user/HARMONICROOMS#p/u/28/kT3oeRuWARw
http://www.youtube.com/user/HARMONICROOMS#p/u/27/3VawPJcbBYU

Best wishes,
Fiona x

Management Structures

I thought these links may be of interest. A chapter from the Urban Design Compendium (English Partnerships et al.), which details the different options for building management structures:

http://www.urbandesigncompendium.co.uk/Establishingmanagementstructures

And an HLF THI case study of Butcher Works:

http://www.hlf.org.uk/ourproject/Documents/Sheffield%20Quarter.pdf

All the best,

Si

---

Mr Simon Parris

Case Studies

The Naples project is also covered in this website of case studies looking at
> social innovation in urban projects as part of an international research
> project.
>
> http://users.skynet.be/frank.moulaert/singocom/index2.html
>
> The site is (very) clunky to look at and use, but I think it might be a useful
> starting point to look at what you might want to do...they cover organisation
> structure and funding well I think, and their categories are clear (Why? How?
> What? How Long? Resources etc) but obviously could do with more, and better,
> images, and maybe some diagrams!
>
>
> Anna Holder

Porssible Funding Source

Another possibility for funding (for longer term) I suspect - see this link:
http://www.thepilgrimtrust.org.uk/apply.php#funding-schemes


Nikky

Next Steering Group Meeting

Our next steering group meeting will be at the later time of 6pm on Tuesday 1st June 2010. We will be in room one at the Old Junior School. Please send any agenda items to the usual email.

Thanks

Portland Works: Alternative Futures

Portland Works Meeting: Tuesday 18th May 5pm

The next Portland Works Meeting will be this Tuesday 18th May 5pm at Room 1, The Old Junior School, South View Road, Sheffield.

Please forward any agenda items to julia at Sharrow Forum.

BBC Website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/sheffield/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8635000/8635300.stm

Listen to the audio and flick through the photo essay- they're fab!

Studio Polpo

http://www.studiopolpo.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99%3Aportland-works&Itemid=56

The Victorian Society

http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/news/rare_industrial_building_under_threat_from_insensitive_development/

More lovely photos...

http://www.rotherham-images.co.uk/sheffield-gallery-six-%28a%29.htm

From Luis Arroyo

Portland Works Agenda Tuesday 20th April 5pm at Sharrow Community Forum

Portland Works agenda Tuesday 20th April 5pm at Sharrow Community Forum

1. Introductions and apologies:
2. Update on Planning
3. Volunteer help
4. Bank Street Art and Access Space
5. Open days
6. City of culture bid
7. Funding- KTP and Yorkshire Forward
8. Vision and job description
9. Political support and Edward Highfield’s visit
10. Meeting with the Landlord and Building Preservation Trust
11. Any other business
12. Next meeting

Portland Works at Bank Street Arts on Radio Sheffield

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0078gbw/Rony_Robinson_15_04_2010/

1:12 in....

Portland Works Agenda

Portland Works Agenda Tuesday 30th March 2010

1. Signing in and introductions
2. Apologies: Alan Deadman, Matthew Conduit, Alison Douglas, Clare Hughes
3. Bank St Arts exhibition
4. Open Days at Portland Works
5. Access Space exhibition
6. Sheffield City Council: Modern Mesters, Edward Highfield and Diana Buckley (visit to Portland 5th May 2010, 2pm)
7. LSDT directors
8. Building Preservation Trust/ Discussions with the Landlord
9. Any other items

We did not take detailed minutes for this meeting but if you have an enquiry about it or any other recent meeting, please do not hesitate to be in contact julia@sharrowcf.org.uk.

Portland Works at Bank Street Arts

http://www.sharrowcf.org.uk/index.php?option=com_jevents&task=icalrepeat.detail&evid=200&Itemid=0&year=2010&month=04&day=10&uid=4fbfd0616d030f46776999a13bd77ba4

From Tuesday, 30 March 2010 - 10:00 To Saturday, 17 April 2010 - 17:00

Portland Works A curated group exhibition designed to draw attention to the traditional skills practiced at Portland Works and the people whose livelihood depends on it continuing as a working/creative community. Portland Works is under threat of closure as one of Sheffield’s remaining small industrial works, because of plans to redevelop it as apartments and offices. This lively and diverse exhibition of art and craft is designed to engage Sheffield people in an awareness of their industrial heritage and its relevance to their lives. The exhibition blurs the boundaries between art and industry, situating the objects of production, both past and present in an art gallery context, for public viewing. It juxtaposes artefacts produced by craftspeople against artists’ responses to the objects and their environment in the form of paintings, photographs, installations, sculpture and film. This exhibition runs from 30th March to 17th April Nic Bate and Matt Risby An installation comprising of video and sounds depicting one whole day in the working life of Portland Works. This comprises of multiple screens showing edited footage of the inhabitants of the Works; craftspeople, musicians, artists etc to portray the diversity and breadth of talent that exists there. This exhibition runs from 30th march to 1st May, Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm For more information, please contact Bank Street Arts on 0114 346 3034‎

Location : Bank Street Arts, S1 2DS‎

Portland works in Guardian G2 feature

 On the corner of Hill Street and Randall Street in Sheffield, not far from the Bramall Lane ground of Sheffield United (known, for a reason, as the Blades) is a large brick building called the Portland Works. Built in the 1870s, it is one of very few workshops still used by the city's surviving Little Mesters – the highly skilled, self-employed craftsmen who formed the backbone of what was, back then, the cutlery and tool-making capital of the world.
Sometime in late 1913, a metallurgist called Harry Brearley showed up at this building, hoping to interest a cutler who worked there, RF Mosley, in a shiny, chromium-heavy steel alloy he had discovered that seemed almost completely resistant to corrosion. Mosley was indeed interested, and soon enough the first stainless steel cutlery ever made left the Portland Works.
Next month, Sheffield city council's planning committee will consider an application to turn Portland Works into 66 studio apartments and some office space. The structure itself is Grade II* listed, and the development looks sympathetic enough. But if it goes ahead, the small group of present-day Little Mesters who occupy the Portland's warren of workshops – a knifemaker, a tool forger, a silver plater, an engraver, a die maker – will be gone, probably for good.
"I'd estimate that more people in the world today eat with stainless steel knives and forks than speak English," says Robin Wood, chair of a newly formed lobby group, the Heritage Crafts Association, which is being launched today at the Victoria & Albert museum. "You could argue it's our biggest cultural export. So it seems quite extraordinary that we can protect the bricks and mortar of a place like this, but not care in the least about the skills and craftsmanship that are so much of this city's culture and identity."
Modern Britain, it seems, is not much fussed about the skills and knowledge that exist only in the minds, eyes and hands of people who make things – our living vernacular heritage. We like them, in a rose-tinted, nostalgic kind of way, but we don't do much to support them.

Read the rest here 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/22/heritage-crafts-at-risk

Skills for the Future: Heriatge Lottery Fund

http://www.hlf.org.uk/HowToApply/programmes/Pages/skillsforthefuture.aspx

Yorkshire Post: Portland Works Article

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/features/The-paint-may-be-peeling.6053699.jp

Radio Sheffield: Portland Works

Andy Cole of Wigful Tools was on Radio Sheffield yesterday, 9th February- the link to the show is here if you would like to listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0067r7q/The_Toby_Foster_Bigger_at_Breakfast_Show_09_02_2010/

Agenda: Tonights Meeting

Portland Works Agenda Tuesday 9th February 2010

1. Update: Inc. Planning Board schedule, Planning Application, Publicity this week, Exhibition at Castle Market, Cllr Scriven Visit etc

2. Publicity: inc distribution of the posters etc

3. Bank Street Arts Exhibition

4. The Planning Board

5. The development and presentation of our vision

6. Any other business

7. Next meeting

Yorkshire Post

There will be a feature on Portland Works in tomorrow's Yorkshire Post. I will try to post a copy of the article up here.

Pictures of Sheffield Old and New: Castle Market

Many thanks to Hedley Bishop, Brian Hatch, Jim Lambert and Lillian Hatch who have taken some fantastic photogrpahs of Portland Works and created this display at Castle Market. They have also produced business cards for the businesses and created a petition against the Planning Application. Go down and see it and visit their facebook group 'Pictures of Sheffield Old and New' here.

Campaign update

There are now over 120 written objections lodged with the Council. This is a fantastic response and we're heartened by the sheer number of people who've cared enough to put an objection together and submit it. On behalf of the campaign - thank you all of you, too many to name, it is all worthwhile and it has been a brilliant message of support to the campaign and above all the tenants.

Despite these objections however, it still; seems perfectly possible that consent to convert to flats could still be recommended, as there are only a few grounds for refusal UNDER PLANNING LAW, and the developers will undoubtedly have assurances to make and proposals to overcome these. And if consent is given, sooner or later the flats will be built.

The final decision will probably be made at the next Planning Board of City Councillors, during the next few weeks. Remember there are elections coming up in May! The next big effort concerns your local Councillors.

So please go to your local library (or sheffield.gov.uk) and check who the Councillors are for your area, write to them, email them, or even better go and see them at their regular surgeries, and make sure they know about Portland Works. We can still stop this!

Sheffield Telegraph Article

There was an article in the Sheffield Telegraph on the Portland Wroks campaign last thursday january 25th. You can viiew it here: http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/Modern-Little-Mesters-bid-to.6021977.jp

Invititation from Bank Street Arts to Portland Works

Art Sheffield 2010 is taking place from 6 March to 1 May at selected venues in Sheffield City Centre. In response to the Festival, the gallery spaces at Bank Street are being emptied of work and our exhibition programme put on hold in the hope that interested parties will use the spaces to make work in response to the festival, to have their say, to comment, to discuss but most importantly to be active participants.

Bank Street Arts is offering artists, makers, the viewing public and anyone interested the opportunity to respond to this and previous festivals held under the ‘Art Sheffield’ banner for the duration of the festival. If you are interested in being kept up to date and being involved, please join the Facebook group:
'Art Sheffield 2010 - Over to You' at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=267371049645&ref=mf&v=info
This is not a curated alternative fringe – it is something that will grow and evolve only through participation…. or alternatively, it won’t.

As this initiative is a response to Arts provision in general and a comment on its planning, financing, governance and politics (with a large or small p depending on your want) we can think of no more deserving or worthy cause in the city at the moment than the Portland Works issue which seems to encapsulate all of these matters. So if artists, film-makers indeed anyone at or connected with PW is interested in getting involved we would be happy to focus part of our efforts on raising the profile of this campaign in some way - we await your suggestions.

Over to You.
www.bankstreetarts.com

objecting to the planning application

Some poeple have been having a bit of trouble with objecting... try this: emailing the case officer Trevor Sullivan directly, on trevor.sullivan@sheffield.gov.uk or...ideally (so we dont clog up his inbox and totally alienate him)

It should also be easy if you follow this link: http://planning.sheffield.gov.uk/publicaccess/tdc/dcapplication/application_comments_entryform.aspx?caseno=JYUXQGNYFY000 Hope that this helps...

Saturday Guardian, 23rd January 2010 Work Section: Ablett Tools John Street Conservation Area

Portland Works Steering Group Meeting Tonight

There will be a steering group meeting tonight at 5pm at the Old Junior School. Please RSVP if you intend to attend. Thanks

Our Vision for the Works

Broad Aims/ Vision as agreed at the 12 Jan public meeting

Portland Works should have

1. Affordable small scale workshops and business space for creative and manufacturing activities.
2. A broad range of businesses and individuals maintained (metalwork, furniture, art, music, light industry and crafts). People who make things! Continuing the rich existing community. Encouragement for start-up businesses.
3. A public profile: regular open days and/or a dedicated part of the building to demonstrate its heritage. Galvanise festival is a possible model. Also provision for school visits.
4. An education/ training facility established. Possibly aimed at high skill, specialist training rather than ‘start of the ladder’. Links with Sheffield College and Freeman College. Apprenticeships with the different crafts onsite.

What do you think?

old news?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/3582971.stm
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/localnews/Cutlery-works-change-opposed.4987000.jp

Next meeting: Portland Works forward planning meeting

The next meeting to discuss the planning applciation and alternative futures for Portland Works will be Tuesday 12th January at 5pm in the Sharrow Suite, Sharrow Community Forum, The Old Junior School, South View Road, Sheffield. (Please see our website for a map: www.sharrowcf.org.uk)

Please RSVP if you intend to attend, sharrow_action@hotmail.com

Thanks,