Heeley City Farm: ‘Café saved and fewer jobs to be lost in fight to save Sheffield gem

Bosses at the much-loved inner city farm, which has been loved by Sheffielders for decades, say they’re making solid progress in restructuring the charity which runs the farm to ensure its long-term survival with planned redundancies down from 17 to nine and the popular café is to stay open.

In December, it was revealed that the farm faced an unprecedented funding and management crisis with up to 17 staff facing redundancy and the café, the garden centre and most of the growing sites around the city at risk.

A public meeting was held with many people coming forward to offer help and support to try to safeguard the future of the farm, which was founded in 1981 and has become a well-loved part of the Heeley landscape providing green spaces and education, employment and training opportunities.

The visitor attraction offers opportunities for young people, adults with learning disabilities and local communities across Sheffield to promote regeneration, environmental education, energy efficiency and health and well-being.

“The financial position is still very tough,” according to CEO Stuart Gillis. “But we’ve been working hard on our plans, and we’ve listened to people who clearly didn’t want the farm with its 41-year history of supporting young and vulnerable people, to close,” he added.

“The café will stay open, but it may need to close on some days, and we won’t be restricting the offer to vegetarian, but sadly the garden centre will close because it is simply losing too much money,” added Stuart.

New chair of trustees, Dave Clarson, said: “The farm’s leaders have produced the turnaround plan that is now being implemented, but we recognise the inherent strain and pain to people of going through a redundancy process. Some staff are deeply affected by what is happening and we are committed to supporting them on whichever way we can.

“However, the emerging picture may be more positive than might be expected. Staff have been encouraged to put forward their own ways of addressing the business case for change, and many have risen to the challenge and the prospect of making the farm work in better ways.

“The quality of response has been impressive, and the emergence of a new leadership team is apparent. We’ve also had more than 20 local people come forward offering to become new trustees following that public meeting and local advertising which is very encouraging.”

CEO Mr Gillis added: “We want to thank everyone for their support and forbearance as we go through this period of change and effort to survive and we promise to be as open and transparent as possible in achieving these objectives. We plan to hold another public meeting to update people in March.”

Heeley City Farm was developed on land which once contained housing which fell into a state of disrepair and were demolished.