SCREW SHARROW CEMETRY

i dislike your type intensely you are the very personification of middle class supercilious mung bean brown rice munching pisshead drughead sandal wearing two faceness snuggling up to local governement when it suits you.....having said that i will happily sign the petition to save the cemetry but as for you banging on about "your" job i could not give two hoots hopefully the cemetry will be saved from the developers and you will still get the sack now that would be funny.....but then again if the cemetry is lost you get sacked lol .......dilemma
why do some anarchist/activist/tree huggers seem to think that dreadlocks are an essential part of being "IT"....is it carved in stone with these freaks.

the only person you wish peace and love to is yourself from what i have heard about you "dude".....hurrah for developers they are taking over again first it was matilda now its cemetry chapel.ha ha

i would like to point out that the last post credited to steve withington is not the work of the stated author but that if well known trouble maker and general allround asshole derek "no friends" underwood.steve withington totally dissassociates himself from the sentiments expressed in the posting...sadly he is unable to get online at the moment and has asked me to correct this issue with immediate effect.best wishes from me and him with your fight to save cemetry chapel.
dave

dear sir in reply to your posting concerning sharrow cemetery you wrote the following....
"Its crisis time for the cemetery not to mention my job! A new developer has put in a planning proposal for the Anglican Chapel (the big black one with the spire) to develop luxury flats for one (mega rich) family".......

i believe that you come from a fairly middle class well to do background youself so why the anti rich family propaganda.....why is it so wicked that a developer would come in and convert the chapel into flats ? this would actually be a way of preserving the building.
as it is the chapel is crumbling and is not being restored as it needs to be.
your posting to this site seems to have a rather selfish theme to it as you mention more than once that "your job" is on the line if the council approves the planning permission from what i have seen of the site in general the chapel remains need of some form of restoration therefore convertion into flats would provide that restoration... so you have hardly been doing a very good job sir.

you went onto write
"If this is accepted the chapel and a large section of the cemetery will be fenced off as a private garden. This will not only ruin any chance of developing a sustainable future for the site as a public park but will also leave me out of a job (as im meant to be restoring it for combined community use)"
well i re-iterate that if you were doing a better job then the council would not be considering planning applications....but councils are councils they need to generate funds here and there and as such the conversion of the chapel into flats is probably a good thing something needs to be done with this crumbling building.

finally you write
"SOOOO in true cemetery stylee we are proposing a "Save the chapel" benefit gig some time in early July with petitions to stop the development (preferably with a licence this time :) ). It is crucial that we get as many signatures as possible to ensure that the proposal is refused
otherwise the people of Sheffield will lose access to a huge chunk of the cities heritage as well as about a quarter of the cemetery land"

i have viewed the planning application and i don't think that your claim that over a quarter of the site will be lost if the planning application is approved is accurate.
finally is this benefit gig more a "SAVE ANGUS HUNTER'S JOB"benefit than a "save sharrow cemetery" benefit
benjamin elworthy

Much love and respect to Monkey for his support, but I'd urge people not to squat the chapel, since it would be premature (there's still a fair chance that the planning application will be dismissed out of hand) and possibly counterproductive (you'd need to break in, which ain't going to help the 'we want to protect this historic building' angle). Maybe in the future, though – but only if the current polite campaign doesn’t work…

As well as emailing comments on the Council website, you can direct letters of objection to Planning Officer Margaret Smith at the Planning Department, Howden House, S1 2HH, and write to the Star/Telegraph through their website ('Contact us' then 'Letters to the editor').

In case anyone was wondering: as Josh’s misleading and wilfully ignorant post suggests, has no interest in preserving the chapel for either posterity or the local community. Only one of his many ridiculous points deserves answering: the lamentable condition of the chapel at the moment is the result of years of neglect by the current owner, Mr Sherazi, who has put forward a number of unsympathetic development proposals for the site, all of which have been refused. The council is currently engaged in legal proceedings to compulsorily purchase the chapel from him, as he has neglected his legal obligation to maintain this Grade II Listed building in the condition in which he purchased it.

Letters of protest, whether to the Council or the papers, could mention the following:

1. Steve Wilkinson (the developer) has a history of buying up, restoring badly, and selling on - he was responsible for what happened to the (formerly) beautiful Glossop road baths (now a Wetherspoon's with timber cladding, plastic external plumbing and neon signs). There’s nothing to stop him selling the chapel on as soon as the conversion work is done, and if he gets permission to convert it to single residential use that makes it easier for the next owner to convert it to multiple residential (i.e. executive flats or student accommodation), which means more vehicles, more wheely bins, and possibly more structural changes and extension of the private grounds – this could be the first step towards a stealth conversion of this site into a privatised ‘mixed-use’ leisure/retail/residential area. It should be mentioned that Wilkinson’s plans are manna from heaven for Sherazi, since they will allow him to offload the chapel for a decent profit before the Council can complete the zero-profit compulsory purchase.

2. The chapel is an integral part of a Grade II Listed landscape. This development would involve the destruction of a section of the Cemetery Road wall, the erection of fencing that will intrude on the rotunda area in front of the chapel, and the construction of a new roadway within the Cemetery grounds. This, along with the allocation of approx 9000m2 of grounds for a private garden, will ruin the form and appearance of this heritage landscape, and severely restrict public access to it.

3. The chapel is a bat roost, but the plans do not mention what is to be done to protect the bats, as required by law.

4. Noise restrictions pertaining to proximity to residential areas would mean that licences for community events like Peace in the Park would be harder to obtain, and the closure of a large piece of Cemetery land will mean the loss of established rights of way used regularly, especially by families and the elderly – is it really worth damaging a valuable social resource like the Cemetery to provide one well-off developer with an investment opportunity? The chapel can and should be given over to community use, for which highly developed and sympathetic plans exist (contrary to what Josh would have you believe). If the Council turns down the application and takes the site from Sherazi, these plans will be one step closer to realisation.

That’s it for now. We can beat this. Keep the faith.