Container Park: Sheffield Council votes to put £550,000 project into storage with pledge for internal audit

After nearly a year of delays, disagreements and overspending, the box park on Fargate – which only debuted in October – will be taken apart starting from January 30, at a further cost of £55,993. All eight containers will go into storage, with a plan to find community groups with their own ideas to use them in the future. They could also possibly be refitted and become public toilets in Sheffield parks.

At a meeting this afternoon (January 24) by the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee meeting, Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed called the project “not our proudest moment”, a sentiment echoed by everyone in attendance.

Leader of the Council Terry Fox pledged there would be “an urgent audit” over the scheme, adding: “[The outcome] has not extinguished our appetite for ambitious development of the city” and urging his colleagues to “crack on with it and make Fargate what it should be”.

The scheme started as a bid to drive footfall into the heart of shopping for the city and generate business interest. Now, it has ended as a point of frustration for Sheffield residents that, at over £550,000, cost twice as much as originally planned.

Papers released before the meeting claimed the Container Park as it stood did not meet building regulations to be used as a two-tier structure, in conflict with plans to create a bar on the second floor. To bring it into compliance, the council claims, would have cost a further £180,000.

Further, the papers say: “Although it has successfully supported six vibrant independent Sheffield businesses in the city centre, the desired outcome to drive increased footfall hasn’t been achieved.”

The council has pledged to carry out an internal audit over the project by June 2023 to “highlight lessons for future learning”.

Other options the council turned down included moving the Container Park to one of two vacant plots near the train station with or without the involvement on a third party, or simply selling the containers off.