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Common Ground

BANG gives students chance to create Common Ground in Broomhill

By Mark Duell

A Broomhill group is offering students work experience in regenerating local run-down streets and securing the future of two historical properties.

Broomhill Action and Neighbourhood Group (BANG) are concerned for Pisgah House, a Georgian property on Pisgah House Road, and 45 Marlborough Road, a Victorian house which was the Sheffield Suffragettes’ headquarters.

The properties are two of the most important in the north-east quadrant of the Broomhill Conservation Area, which BANG feel is rapidly losing much of its historic character.

BANG would like volunteers to help them research sources of funding and write grant applications to ensure the long-term future of both properties, bring them back into sustainable use and improve the local environment.

They need help to reach “intermediate” funding stages - winning grants between £10,000 and £50,000 - to help them to put together an ambitious bid for Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI) lottery funding of up to £2m.

The bid would be enough to buy and refurbish the two houses and support a range of other local regeneration initiatives involving local residents.

Lee Kenny, Chair of BANG, said: “We’re looking for people who have an aspiration to work in the charitable sector. This is a great opportunity for them to get some experience because it’s working on real-life projects.

“The THI grant is our ultimate goal but before we get there we know we’re going to need money at intermediate stages. What we want right now is for people to help us to get this challenging project off the ground.

“We’ve mapped out what some of the intermediate stages could be but we need help with our funding strategy.

“The job specification is firstly research - we need to know who we can apply to - and then to begin to start writing the applications.”

The University of Sheffield, who own Pisgah House, intend to sell it in 2010, but BANG have asked them to delay this while their funding campaign goes ahead, and lease or rent it back as a community office and meeting space.

Pisgah House’s garden is adjacent to the Tapton Experimental Gardens ‘Arboretum’ - a large tree collection - that is expected to become a public open space when the Tapton Halls of Residence site is redeveloped in 2010.

BANG think Pisgah House could be developed into a centre offering services that the community currently lacks and help improve local social cohesion.

Alternatively the garden of Pisgah House could be incorporated into the new park and the house itself returned to residential use.

The whole project is called ‘Common Ground’, to reflect the wide-ranging aims of the work - environment, conservation, regeneration and cohesion.

BANG want to bring the area’s empty properties back into residential use, create a community space, improve residents’ local history understanding and make locals more vigilant in spotting and preventing further damage to the character of streets and houses.

They would like a small group of “keen and able” students to work on the project and can pay expenses for relevant training, travel and sundries.

“People who are interested in pursuing a career in this sector will know things that we don’t know,” Dr Kenny said.

“It’s really practical hands-on stuff. If we can get a small group of people working together, they can do as much or as little as they are able to.”

To find out more, email Lee Kenny at: chair@thebang.org.uk, or visit the Sheffield Volunteering website at: www.sheffieldvolunteering.com.