Hundreds of trade unionists and activists gathered outside the Town Hall yesterday, just as preparations were being made to host a council question and answer session with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
Speaking after the demonstration, Paul Blomfield said, "[The protest] has been organised at very short notice and overall we've had about three or four hundred people here. It's very positive."
Although Mr Clegg did not arrive at the Town Hall until after the crowds had dispersed, Mr Blomfield remained hopeful he will respond to his invitation to face a public grilling, "So far he's dodged every opportunity to meet the people of Sheffield in an open context, where people can fire questions at him without being stage managed. I hope he'll do it."
On the subject of Mr Clegg's pledge to return any net gain on the sale of his house to the taxpayer, Mr Blomfield said "Well, that's the test for him. And he may as well sell it, because he's got no roots in Sheffield. He doesn't come here very often."
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"Judas": Clegg welcomed home by hecklers.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was welcomed back to Sheffield by a crowd of protesters, and hecklers today.
Mr Clegg had returned to Sheffield for a council Q&A session and to launch the region's new Local Enterprise Partnership. As he was warmly greeted on the steps of the Town Hall by council leader Paul Scriven, protesters shouted "Judas" at the Deputy Prime Minister.
A Union organised rally, which dispersed minutes before Mr Clegg's arrival, drew crowds in their hundreds outside the Town Hall. Chants of "Nick Clegg, Tory Boy" were heard through the protest, attended by a number of Labour councillors and Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield.
The insults were hurled by a small group of protesters who had stayed behind after the demonstration ended.
More on the protest to follow, including video of Paul Blomfield MP's speech.
"Any time. Any place." Blomfield challenges Clegg to face public
Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield will challenge Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to face the people of Sheffield over the Forgemasters loan cancellation, at a protest tomorrow. It has been revealed that a petition calling for the Government to reinstate the loan has reached over 10,000 signatures.
Mr Blomfield said, "I’m inviting Nick Clegg to an open public meeting to answer local concerns about the cancellation of the loan to Forgemasters. Any time, any place, this is his chance to answer to the people of Sheffield”.
“10,000 people from right across Sheffield have signed our petition calling on Clegg to reverse the decision to scrap the Forgemasters loan. The scale of anger and opposition to the Tory-Lib Dem Government’s decision is unprecedented and shows no sign of abating."
The Town Hall protest, which is to take place at 5.15pm, is timed to coincide with Mr Clegg's visit to the city to meet with councillors, business and voluntary leaders and local MPs, and to launch a new council service to help city businesses.
Cllr Leigh Bramall said last night of Mr Clegg's visit, "You can say Nick Clegg can come to Sheffield and hold his head up high, but he doesn't. It's a hokey-cokey, in and out the back door."
Clegg to visit city to launch council enterprise deal
Deputy PM Nick CleggDeputy Prime Minister and Hallam MP Nick Clegg is to visit Sheffield tomorrow to help launch a new scheme intended to bring the council and local businesses together.Mr Clegg will visit the Town Hall to help launch the new Sheffield Local Enterprise Partnership, introduced at last night's meeting of the full council. The LEP is intended as a replacement for regional development agency Yorkshire Forward which is to be abolished.
He will also meet with local MPs, councillors and business and voluntary group leaders for the Sheffield First Partnership leadership summit at Mercure St. Pauls Hotel.
At last night's meeting, Cllr Scriven, who has been involved in the founding of the LEP, said he hoped the replacement of Yorkshire Forward with a more private sector inclusive project would remove beaurocracy and stimulate growth.
He said, "If this city is going to move forward over the next ten years that growth is going to have to come from the private sector. That means that his city is going to have to be business friendly, it's going to have to be business smart and it's going to have to have a vision about how it works for or with business.
"It's not going to be about Town Hall knows best, it's going to be about the business working with the council and different councils working throughout Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, to actually get the right kind of approach."
The proposals were largely welcomed by both sides of the chamber, although Labour councillors stopped short of giving the plans their full support. Cllr Tony Damms pointed out that some in the private sector are reluctant to get involved.
"They're against it because they don't feel they've been consulted" he said, "and they think it's a bit rich to call on a set of proposals as major as these, and claim that the business community's on side when they've not even been asked. They've been ignored."
He went on to voice uncertainty about whether the LEP would be the shot in the arm that Mr Scriven says it will, "We don't feel we can support the scrapping of the regional development agencies, such as Yorkshire Forward, and their replacement with the Local Enterprise Partnerships, because we don't know how they will work." He said, "We don't know if it will stimulate the economy, and we don't know if it'll prioritise certain things that won't help this city. We might be worse off with this option."
Plans to build new social housing approved
The houses are to be built on the corner of Clun Street and Ellesmere Road in BurngreaveLabour and Lib Dem Councillors united in their approval for plans to build 19 new social houses in Burngreave today.The houses will have between two and five bedrooms, and will be among the first in the country to be built to level 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, a government measure of energy efficiency. Tenants will be able to use free electricity during the day, provided by solar panels on the roof of each house.
Councillors put the plans on hold three weeks ago, to ask officers for clarification on a number of issues, including the availability of school places in the area. The officers full report on the development can be found here
It has not yet been decided whether the seven detached and 12 semi-detached homes on Ellesmere Road will be built by the Council or by a housing association. They would be among the first new council houses built in Sheffield for almost twenty years.
Labour councillor Gill Furniss said, "My only disappointment would be that it may not be council housing." She suggested to the Liberal Democrat councillors sitting opposite that they should "ask Nick if we can have the first council houses built in Sheffield for god knows how long".
Arthur Dunworth, Lib Dem Councillor for Stannington expressed his hope that the project will be developed by the Council rather than a housing association. He said, "I think this is really, really great news and I've been waiting nineteen bloody years for it."
The council will announce who will take the project forward on Tuesday 7th September.
Housing benefit cuts "will increase homelessness"; Council loses £10.5m in unpaid rent
Commenting on a report from homelessness charity Crisis, Cllr Creasy noted that one in five Sheffield households receive housing benefit, a figure which is likely to increase as unemployment rises.
Her comments come on the same day that the Star revealed that Sheffield has lost £10.5m in unpaid council house rent over the last six years. Sheffield Homes, which manages the city's social housing, has written off £9.26m of this figure as bad debt.
The loss was revealed following an inspection from the Audit Commission (which the coalition revealed over the weekend would be axed with the loss of 2000 jobs), which urged Sheffield Homes to improve its rent collection methods.
The report estimates that the average loss of income from the changes to housing benefit will add up to £600 per year per household.
Cllr Creasy said, "About 48,000 households in Sheffield are currently claiming housing benefit. A loss of £600 for someone earning £16,000 (after tax-free allowance) is the equivalent of an income tax rise of 3.75%. These cuts by the coalition government will leave more Sheffield people struggling to pay the rent, more falling into serious debt and more people becoming homeless.
It’s very unfair, coming at a time when many people are facing economic uncertainty or even redundancy. Once again we see the coalition government ’s cuts are hitting the poor hardest. The government could avoid these cuts by tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion by some of the wealthiest, which could raise billions of pounds a year."
Following the coalition government's first budget in June, the Department for Work and Pensions admitted the cap would have an impact on household income, but said, "the purpose of reform is to influence rent levels and housing choices, which is likely to mitigate the impact of these measures."
No government job for Blunkett
David Blunkett has denied suggestions from the Mail on Sunday that he is set to advise the coalition government on welfare reform. In a post on his blog this morning, the Sheffield MP said "The notion that I will 'advise' David Cameron, Nick Clegg or anyone in the Government is false. I have not sought, nor will I seek, to take up a coalition role.", although he said he was considering an unpaid advisory position with conservative think-tank the Centre for Social Justice.
The CSJ was set up by former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan-Smith, now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Mr Blunkett said: "Now that Iain Duncan Smith is the Work and Pensions Secretary and has obviously severed his links with the Centre for Social Justice, the CSJ is seeking a greater degree of independence and has approached me to see if I would be prepared to act as an advisor.
"I have asked the CSJ to come back with a proposition for a role for me, on an unpaid, informal basis. There is no question of paid work being involved."
Mr Duncan-Smith stepped down as director of the CSJ last month, as did Executive Director Philippa Stroud, who the Observer alleged had run prayer sessions to ‘cure’ gay people. She is now Mr Duncan-Smith's special advisor.
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