Join me as I go for a walk from Sheffield to Meadowhall along the canal, and ponder whether the path could be converted into some kind of cycle superhighway to provide a convenient bicycle link between the two areas.
In Part 2 I continue on to Rotherham and show how much better that side of the path is compared to the Sheffield side.
Does anyone know what these plant pots with pictures of bicycles are for? It’s supposed to lock your bike to it or something. I’m just at Victoria Keys, which is a lovely little quiet spot just on the outskirts of Sheffield City Center. And uh as we turn around, we’re just walking alongside uh Blast Lane where a lot of people park their cars. And there’s been talk about um having uh some sort of cycle lane in Atliff. Now, I’m not going down the main road in Atliffe today because I’m walking. So, I’m going to walk down the canal path. And uh I’m normally a cyclist. I don’t normally walk that far, but people often suggest that I should ride a bike down the canal. So, I’m going to show you why that’s not really suitable, at least for quite large sections, quite large sections of the canal. I’m going to look at what we could potentially do to improve it to make it more cyclist friendly, but also look at whether we could have some sort of cycle superighway between here and Meadow Hall. So, this is where you’d come through to get on the canal if you’re coming by bike. And uh my first impressions as we come down here is that the uh surface of the path is actually very smooth. It’s quite a good quality tarmac and it’s actually quite wide. So, there’s lots of room for us to walk around. Uh there’s lots of room for groups of people and lots of room for cycles to overtake people. So, this is actually a really good start. See, he came past me no trouble at all. But can I get under the bridge? So, this is bridge number three on the canal, which is called Cadman Bridge, erected in uh 1819. So, probably not many people were using it for bikes back then, but first thing I notice, it’s uh quite low down for someone who’s as tall as I am. So, I have to bend over. It’s a bit It’s a bit of a a job to get it uh to get your bike under there. Uh but that’s as almost as good as it gets or at least for a while because as we come down here, this is where the path starts to get really inadequate. Now, the reason I wanted to point this out is because there are actually places where on here where we could build some sort of cycle superighway, possibly without the need to build cycle lanes in Atliffe. Now, as a cyclist, I always find the uh main road layout in Atacliff to be quite satisfactory. Um, and I’m not sure whether having segregated cycle lanes, which they’re planning to do, will actually improve things. It may do, it may not. I think we’ll have to wait and see. But there’s already some bits which have some kind of kind of sort of segregated cycle ways along parts of the canal and parts of the Trans Penine Trail and near Atacliff Police Station and things like that. I do wonder if we could build something of a more dedicated system, possibly using the canal. So, you can see here on the canal footpath, uh there’s load of this green uh green um I don’t know what you call it, but it’s they sort of put it down to stop it from getting muddy, but uh it’s kind of sort of worked. But if we look down here, it’s all broken up down there. And it’s it I don’t know how well it comes across on on camera, but it’s uh the path’s all all broken. It’s all wonky. So, it’s not very good for bikes. But, I don’t really see any reason why this couldn’t all be dug up and uh had a proper tarmac surface. I mean, you might have to get rid of some of these trees. I mean, those trees look new, so it would be unfortunate to lose the trees, but you could certainly um dig some of this up and widen the path up to the uh you know, up to the building and make it almost double the width, which would be ideal for for a large cycle path. So, yeah, this this this bridge is the first bad bit, but this is nowhere near as bad as it gets. It’s fine to walk under, uh but it’s really not very good to ride a bike under, especially if you’ve not got very good wheels or tires. [Music] You see, this is really not a very good bit to uh ride over. It really dips down there. Now, again, there’s plenty of space here to actually widen this to more than double the width, but unfortunately, you would have to lose the trees. This path as it as it stands is not good enough as a cycle path. [Music] Now, it’s amazing how much you actually don’t pay attention to, especially when you’re on a bike or in a car. I never really realized that this path is actually so close to the uh Sheffield incinerator. But compared to the um Rotherham to Meadow Hall part of the canal path, you don’t actually get that many people walking and riding up here. And it’s a shame because I think if they did it up, you probably could increase the amount of people using it quite considerably cuz it is actually quite a nice walk to be honest. I mean, there’s obviously no trees or or grass growing under under this road bridge. I mean, they won’t be able to because they won’t get the sunshine, but it shows how it shows you just how wide uh the whole thing can actually be uh if you don’t have the trees. Now, I’m doing this video now because I’ve actually been down here a few times recently, both on the bike uh and walking. I normally don’t bother cuz I don’t normally walk in this area and on the bike it’s a lot quicker. I mean, because of the bad surface and the people using it, like there’s a huge group of people down there, it can be a real pain to try and get past people uh on the bike, and that can just make it a bit of an inconvenience. Whereas, if you go down the main road, you can just go straight down the main road to Meadow Hall. But I I remembered how it’s actually quite a nice peaceful journey. If you forgive the uh industrial noise, it’s actually quite a nice peaceful journey. And it makes a really nice change uh from from going down the main road. Now, we do have a lot of trees down the side here. Um I don’t know whether it would be feasible to get rid of these to to build a better path. Uh I think we all know how much Sheffield City Council hate trees. So, there’s a possibility we could get rid of them. Um, it’s a question of whether you would want to and whether you would be able to plant replacements elsewhere. But, uh, even even if we didn’t get rid of them, you might be able to clear out an area like this bit just here where there’s a gap, clear a few more of these trees out just to make some convenient passing places or put some benches in for you to sit down and then leave the rest of the trees cuz if you got some passing places, makes it a lot easier to get past uh, groups of people like those who are in front of me. And I do actually have to keep checking behind me just to check that there’s no cycles who are going to mow me [Applause] down. But what we can see here is a kind of crude attempt at repairing the path. You can see this the side of the canal sort of starting to break down. So they put this piece of wood in and then they put this green material on top to make it something vaguely resembling a path. And it again, it kind of sort of works as a repair. It it needs the investment and to to be done properly. Now, I don’t actually know much about the the construction of canals, but here you can see the construction changes from stone to these metal things, so I don’t know if they’ve been added after the fact, but they do actually, if you see, they do actually extend the the toe path out by a good foot, maybe 2 feet. So again, that’s some potentially some way of extending the path out further if we could somehow extend it into the canal because you’ve got all this canal which no one actually uses. Now here we’ve got this bridge and things like this will always be a little bottleneck, but it doesn’t really matter for little sections like this. I never quite figured out what this is for. We’ve got these metal bits and some railings. But I really don’t know what this is for. It’s obviously covering something up. Now, this is the bridge over Bacon Lane, which uh was erected in 1819. So, uh getting on a bit, and you certainly wouldn’t want to knock this down to build a cycle way. So, this is again just somewhere you have to really be careful, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to put a a reflective bit on this on the bridge or maybe a street light cuz it it can get a bit uh difficult to see these sorts of things in the dark. And this is really it echoes as well, but it’s really a bit uh a bit um short. It’s again, it’s no good for tall people like me. Now, it looks like these to tie your boat to were added quite recently, 1987, if that’s anything to go by. Now, all along here, we’ve got these little posts that say how many miles it is, but I’m not sure miles to where 3 miles to to what? It’s not 3 miles to the city center where we’ve just come from cuz I’m I’m I’ve been standing here yapping most of the time. So, it’s we’ve certainly not come three miles, but 3 miles down there. What? 3 miles to Meadow Hall, Tinsley, uh, Rothram, what is it? I don’t know. But you can see along this bit, um, these posts to tie your boat to are really not in the way here because we’ve got quite a decent sized path. And even with all this grass here, you could clear all this grass out and tarmac the whole thing. And you wouldn’t really have to get rid of many trees cuz we’ve got a huge section with no trees. Uh so on this uh very derelic looking wall, someone has actually gone to the effort of uh painting some really good graffiti on it. Uh I don’t know who or when it was done, but the previous one just said 2024. So some of this is quite recent. But this is in Atac where they’re on about doing the uh road and putting the cycle lanes in. And I’ve always wondered what that is. There’s a half a wall with a load of windows in there that’s been there ages and it’s never been knocked down. But if we zoom out and have a look here, you’ll see there’s an awful lot of works going on. Uh this was all former industrial areas and they’re currently digging it up uh with the intention of building lots of new housing here. And the whole area does need housing. I mean, the whole country needs housing. We’ve got another wall here with some windows which we can just about have a peep through. Can’t really see much through the windows, but I probably would have been some sort of industrial building at one time. But I think these are supposed to be net zero houses, whatever that means. So, at least that’s what I’ve been told. Um, big question for us, I think. Will it be affordable houses or will it turn cuz Atliff has a lot of industry still? Still has a lot of shops and a lot of industry. Will it turn at a cliff into the new Kellum Island? Callum Island is quite a nice area, but it’s effectively been sort of gentrified and turned into flats and quite expensive flats and uh fancy bars and nightclubs and restaurants and things like that and it’s it’s not really got the industry that it once had and people are concerned will that happen to Atliffe. Well, I really haven’t got a clue and at this stage I’d rather not speculate. It’s always quite fascinating to see all these sort of derelik walls along places like this. It makes you wonder what they were once used for and what used to happen here cuz I’m only in me 30s. I was born in uh the early 1990s. So, um I I don’t really know much about the history of the of this canal. It was uh built I think probably in the 1800s, I’d imagine. In fact, to be honest, I I wish I could tell you more about it, but uh maybe maybe one for you to have to look up on Google. Don’t forget to subscribe to Donkey Dave on YouTube. He talks sort of common sense. Now, people often say we we don’t have the money for things like this, but I think we do have the money. We’ve just spent uh £17 million, maybe $18 million uh on a Dutch roundabout in the city center, which I thought was going to be a complete death trap and a complete a very very expensive death trap. And it’s actually turned out to work really well in the end. But of course, we do have money. This bridge here is a super tram bridge. This car is the Sheffield Super Tram, which was built in the early 1990s at a great cost and uh somewhat somewhat partially replaces the tram network that we had until 1960. Why they couldn’t extend it to the whole city, I don’t know, but they just left it as it was for for many many years. Will it be extended into the future? Possibly. People keep talking about it. I mean, 25 years ago, we’re on about extending it to my part of Rodam, but no one ever did. Yeah, I’m I’m going to say this bridge across the canal was probably not cheap. So, a bit further on, we’ve got a similar looking bridge, albeit a smaller one. And the reason it looks similar is because it was built around the same time. It’s actually labeled as a super tram bridge, but it’s actually a pedestrian bridge to get pedestrians from one side to the other. I think probably to get them to the Super Tra, but after that Super Tra, we’re back to the path being uh very very muddy. Now, it did rain a bit overnight. It has been quite dry, so it’s not muddy like it is in winter when it’s raining all the time, but you’ll see there’s bits of bricks there. There’s holes. There’s puddles. This is where it gets really bad because you can’t really ride a bike on here. At least not in in winter and it’s not very pleasant to um but this is where they’ve actually finished putting that small bit of effort in to give us a nice path. But I think some of this could probably be excavated and the path uh resurfaced with the tarmac. And again, that would make quite a nice uh cycle lane for lots more people to use, both cyclists and pedestrians. Obviously, you still got this next bridge which is a bottleneck, but again, that’s just something to put up with. I’m not sure if this bridge is someone’s front garden or if it’s a local dumpy site. So that’s where the super tram is. And of course, someone at some point will have had to have gone to some effort and expense to actually build that. Looking along here, we’ve got this uh wall which is sort of just sort of loose looseish bricks in a in a metal container. Uh you could probably dig all this out a bit and put the uh build a wall further up again to make it wider. And you see here, for some reason, they have actually gone to the effort of narrowing the canal. I’m not actually sure why. There’s a few bits of I mean, obviously some bits it’s necessary for bridges, but I’m not I’m not 100% certain why they’ve narrowed it just here because that bridge is actually quite wide. [Applause] They built an entire aqueduct and there’s not a single boat using it. Yeah, this bit gets a bit awkward uh on the bike, especially uh when it’s wet and [Music] muddy. You see, I think someone’s actually been digging this bit up recently. So, I don’t know if they’re going to put a a decent tarmac surface on or whether they’re going to put some of that green stuff on like they’re further up. But here you can see how it’s it’s very uneven. I mean, we barely even got a path here. We’ve got the luxury of lamp posts on this part. So, at the other side of this bridge, we’ve got Dawn Valley Bowl. And just over towards this side, you can see some Oops. You can see some bits sticking out. That’s um I think that’s the uh English Institute of Sport, but it’s actually over there on that side of on the other side of the tram tracks and the other side of the canal. Uh where there’s actually an existing cycle lane. They built one completely segregated from the road. It’s sort of between here and the main road. So about as segregated as you can get and that’s actually quite good, but it only goes on for about 200 yards. So, apart from something to have as a as to to have as a bit of a nicity, it doesn’t really serve that much purpose. It certainly doesn’t help you get all the way from Sheffield to Meadow Hall. See, this is just about all right at the moment moment, but this is a lot worse in winter. So, now we’ve got to cross over. That path will take you up to the Europa link and we’ve got to come over a bridge. We actually got quite a nice wide bridge with very decent surface to get over. And then as soon as we’re off the bridge, it turns into a dodgy truck again. [Music] See, there’s quite a lot of um path here. If you get rid of the grass over there and tarmac all this, you’ve got a decent space, but you could actually dig some of this out here without it having too much uh impact on the trees because the trees actually go about quite a long way. And we’ve even got a fire extinguisher. If you have a fire, uh you know where to come to put it out. Now, one thing you might not have seen much of on this uh video is boats. And the reason why is that this canal doesn’t actually get that much use. The reason being, if we go back to where where we’ve just come from, that’s the start of the canal. That’s the canal basin. So that’s where the where the canal starts basically. There’s absolutely nothing to go up there for unless you actually want to park your boat in Victoria Keys and go to Sheffield. Uh now my grandparents used to have a canal boat, had one for quite a few years and they actually kept they live in Rotherham, but they actually kept theirs down near Nottingham or Derby somewhere down there. And from there they traveled all over the country. And uh you can travel all over over the country from the Nottingham area, but you can’t here. The only place you can go is back up to Sheffield. So, I think they only ever brought brought their boat up here once. And uh there’s not really many industrial uses for canals anymore. Um there is a a company in Rotherham bit further along than where I’m going to go today, but they’re called Exol and they’re an oil company. They regularly transport things by canal, but I think they’re probably about the only ones who do. Now, something I’ve always wondered about is this bit here. You can see we’ve got those four flags to indicate that it’s narrowed. But I’m not actually sure why it’s narrowed. You can see just here we’ve got these uh bits of wood sticking out to sort of guide you in which are very rotten but uh still standing. Uh we’ve got a wall which has got the end broken off and you can see at the other side if we zoom in on the other side that piece of wood goes all the way up to the wall. But if we z come back to here, you can see it’s all it’s all broken and uh there’s a big gap there. So, you don’t want to fall in just there, do you? But I’m not sure why this is been built the way it has been. And that might just be my ignorance because I don’t know an awful lot about canals. You see, there was something just here once. You see, we could walk in there and fall in, which we don’t want to. It doesn’t look too deep. I’m not sure what these are. We’ve got these two huge planks of wood and some bits going over crossing over it. And there’s some bits of metal sticking up out of the canal to support it. And uh I think someone’s even left an old tablecloth there. So if you want to have your dinner, you can come and do it here. And then we’ve got this contraption at the other side. And I’m not sure what that contraption is. There’s a I thought that was a bird sitting on it, but it’s not. It’s just a piece of wood. So, I’m not sure if it was some sort of bridge. Perhaps it could be some sort of uh bridge that could be put in and taken out. Maybe. I don’t know. But it’s been here for well all my life. And I’ve quite often wondered what it is. And perhaps someone who knows something more about canals could tell me why could tell me what it is and why it’s been left in in such a state. Just thinking this bit’s so straight you could almost turn it into a racetrack. But this bloke who’s called Name Game certainly seems to want a lot of publicity. So if you’re watching, hello Name Game, whoever you are. You might just about be able to see it through the trees, but here’s the center, including the cinema. I forget what it’s called. I think it’s um Oh, Cine World. Yeah, I can just about see the sign through the trees there. But that was built all I think in the early 90s to complement the Super Tram and the Meadow Hall. And as far as I can tell, it’s been a fairly good success. It always seems to be busy. I don’t know how much it cost to see a film though. Last time I went to the cinema was actually the one at Meadow Hall and that was well over a decade ago. And I think it cost 10 quid, maybe 12, something like that. It was ridiculous. I think this one is entertainment back when I used to go in the early 2000s. It was about 2 pound50. Yeah, you get a better view from just here. And uh just here you can see the tram track and the train tracks. And there’s Sheffield Forge Masters. And Forge Masters are actually having a big extension. And that’s what those cranes are for over in the distance. Uh they’re extending it uh onto what was some derelict land I believe. So this is the start of the Tinsley flight. So if you are coming here by boat, you better have some patience to get down the hill. But we finally got some boats. You can m your boat here. I think these are the first ones apart from one or two are parked up. This is these are the first ones since Victoria Keys. And we’ve got a half decent path at Long West. This is actually quite satisfactory to ride a bike up, but it wouldn’t hurt to actually tarmac it. And uh as I’ve said before again, you could you could actually extend this quite far out uh to accommodate more people uh again bigger groups of people and cyclists who want to overtake walkers. Comic Sands, anyone? Not what you usually end up seeing in my videos, but I suppose everyone’s entitled to their opinion. Some people might agree with that one, though. Now, here’s a funny looking boat. This is actually an art installation. And uh I can’t remember who did it. I think it might have been the one the same person who was responsible for the upside down car in Tinsley a few years ago. But if you want to know more, they’ve got one of these two-dimensional barcodes that you can look at. Now, a lot of Sheffield was bombed in the war, or at least the city center was. Uh but it turns out this lock in Tinsley was um bombed as well. And that’s not particularly surprising because when the Germans tried to bomb Sheffield, uh the reason they actually bombed Sheffield was because they took a wrong turning. I believe they were actually intending to bomb this area because this area where IKEA is behind me was all steel works. Everything was pretty much steel works from Sheffield through Meadow Hall all the way down into Rotherham. And uh Meadow Hall is built on the site of what was Hadfield’s steel works. Was it Hadfields or was it Hatfields? Like a D or a T? I’m not actually sure. That’s one to look up. But it was a steel works until the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher and her government closed them all down and left lots of people without jobs. I think the area has more or less recovered since then. I mean, it was 40 odd years ago, but it’s mostly retail. But we don’t have much industry anymore, which is a shame because it’s a really good area for industry. I mean, Atac, as we’ve just seen, does have some bits of industry over there. And I’m not sure exactly what that one is there. The one with the colored stripes. I think that might be some sort of warehouse, but again, it’s like Doncaster, a lot of Doncaster is all warehousing now. There’s no proper industry like there used to be. There’s plenty of room here for a cycle superighway. There’s the canal path and there’s whatever this is. I can’t help but wonder what this derelict building is. It looks like it’s got some sort of writing on the side as well as the graffiti. [Applause] [Music] Is this one of those games? I think. Well, I’ll let you read it yourself on your computer screen. Yeah, I have no idea what this building is. It’s been here a long time. I know that for certain. And it looks like it’s falling to pieces, but there’s plenty of room for a cycle superighway. Now, I’ve actually not walked past that many people. I’ve not had many people pass me, and I think I’ve only seen three or four bikes in this whole trip. And that’s because this part of the uh canal is just not that popular. And I think it kind of makes sense with the surface being very variable. Uh it’s like why why bother when you’ve got on your bike when you’ve got a perfectly good road uh just off to the left. Anyway, we’ve reached what I think is the final lock of Tinsley Flat, which means we’ve got to the end of the Sheffield section of the canal and uh we’re at Meadow Hall and uh name game by the looks of it has had an upgrade to color. There we go. Now, you got to watch yourself on this bit. There’s some uh steps here, but I think we can see uh how some of this canal, if it had some investment put in and some effort, it could make a really good cycle way that could easily compete and probably be a lot better than anything they’d put on the main road through Atac. So, as we come out of Sheffield and across the border into Rotherham, I’ll show you what Rotherham did uh about 10 to 15 years ago because they decided that their canal actually was going to be something cyclable.
1 Comment
Gud werk Mr Steve