Summer 2001

Editorial

We may not have a chance to vote for local Councillors this year, but as so much of what happens at the Town Hall is dictated by the Government nowadays, it could be argued that the outcome of voting for Parliament on the 7th June will have a direct impact on us here in Bradway.

On that basis, let's hope as many people as possible register their choice, which couldn't be easier now that everyone is entitled to vote by post if they wish.

Nearer to home it is good to see new tenants moving into previously empty shops.

On Bradway Road - Bolger Interior Decorators have opened a new branch and offer a complete decorating service or the means for you to do-it-yourself. As well as decorating they also undertake plastering and joinery work.

On Wollaton Road - The Iron is infact two businesses. The Iron shop as its name suggests will meet your ironing needs including a collection and delivery service, while New Pin Clean, trading out of the same shop, offers a comprehensive cleaning service for your home.
Finally at Greenhill roundabout Escape caters for all your beauty needs!

Judging by our post bag, Bradway seems to have more than its share of people who enjoy or write poetry, which we will try to reflect in future issues, starting on page 10.

John Baker, Editor

Must we wait for a child to die?

The long running saga of Bradway's road safety campaign goes on and on, while local school children still remain very much at risk on every day they leave home to go to Sir Harold Jackson School.

Local representatives again met with councillors and townhall officials in February, when specific plans for providing safe crossings in Bradway Road were discussed, and firm decisions are now awaited.

It can only be hoped that a satisfactory solution is agreed on, and immediately implemented, before a child is killed.
In the meantime, no volunteers have yet come forward to take on the duties of crossing patrol wardens for the Bradway Road/Twentywell Lane junction area and for the top of Prospect Road. The council controlled pay scale is £4. 83 per hour (i.e per day) and there are 30-40 vacancies throughout Sheffield. No wonder!

This is surely a good topic to question our constituency candidates about in the run-up to the General Election?

Roger Davis

Mobile phones

Love them or hate them, they are here to stay. Indeed it won't be long before you can see the caller on a small screen, as well as receive that fax or access the Internet.

Unfortunately it seems social graces and common sense lag behind technology, with the user inflicting themselves - well a one sided conversation - on anyone within earshot.

But most worryingly is the driver, already insulated in a metal box, who enters into animated conversation while drifting towards the wrong side of the road or in the vicinity of a busy junction. People have even been seen studying a map while talking on the phone! Heaven forbid the child, dog or old lady who steps in their path.

If you receive a call while driving and are alone in the car, please pull over and stop before answering. Even hands-free sets are dangerous, as it is all to easy to concentrate on the call and not on the road.

New Archeology Trail

A new waymarked trail highlighting some of the archaeological and historic features of Ecclesall Woods, was launched in April. The Trail is around 2 kilometers long and most of it follows surfaced, and level to moderately sloping ground.

An accompanying leaflet (which is free) is available from reception at the Council's Meersbrook Park Office, other public outlets or from the Friends of Ecclesall Woods.

Post Box

Dear Sir,
In the February edition of your publication a Di Newsome queried a high pitched noise in her neighbourhood.

Last week I saw a fox uphill from the old Mother Redcap crossing towards Woollaton (I hadn't been in the pub!) and a similar looking one in my back garden on a number of occasions as my dog has barked at it with his daft labrador head sticking out of the cat flap in the early hours. The fox for its part just stares at him and continues to eat his bones.

Foxes have a distinctive high pitched call which I have heard on a number of occasions, and this could be the explanation. I apologise for my dog and the cat flap is now secured at nights.

John Light

Dear Sir,
The mistle thrushes at the Everard/Rosamund junction had an ugly shock in the New Year, when their rowan tree was invaded by twenty of those Scandinavian invaders, the waxwings. There they were, each as big as the thrushes, scoffing berries and totally ignoring the scolding mistles, several onlookers and my car. Next day, waxwings gone, the thrushes guarded the sad remnants.

Fortunately, a richly berried holly bush across the road restored thrushly dignity - until the end of March, one or the other was there, or on the local roof ridges.

Waxwings were widely present during January and February, including a mob of 200 on Ecclesall Road. Their movements are impossible to predict. I saw another group on Bushey Wood Road, above the Spar shop, yet the berry bushes on Prospect Road above the Redcap seemed to attract none. Only two years ago, scores clung to the sides of houses and bungalows. In early April, waxwings put in a late appearance on Prospect, first twenty and then thirty. They particularly favour the bungalow just by the entrance to Celandine.
Long-tailed tits are thriving all round Bradway. They have the smallest body of any British bird, but the length of their tail pushes them ahead of the goldcrest, wren and blue and coal tits. Striking birds they are, in pink purple, white and grey, with stiffly held tails twice as long as their bodies.

Wintertime finds them roving the district in large family groups of a dozen or more. They can be very tame. On March 23, five were in my front garden, on a berberis bush by the front window. They let themselves be watched from under a metre away. Late in the year this was for such a grouping, because the flocks usually break up into pairs from the end of February. A series of mild winters (ignore our terrible March) means that winter deaths have been reduced and nationally as well as locally, the species is doing well.
After the kestrel and sparrowhawk, the buzzard is our commonest bird of prey. Somerset and Dorset have the world's densest populations, yet the hills west of Sheffield have what seems to be a better environment. They are spreading northwards and eastwards across the Peak District, but why so slowly and in such small numbers is not understood by biologists. There is no evidence of persecution anyway.
The nearest breeding location to Bradway is Fox House, and they can often be seen over the wood there or towards the Toad's Mouth. So I was delighted to see my first local buzzard on 31 March, soaring high above Poynton Woods at Twentywell and drifting effortlessly over the estate towards Queen Victoria Road. Small birds of course, were in attendance, trying to hurry it along.
The bird rarely flaps its broad, blunt wings. Their span is over four feet, so they are seriously large. The prey is mainly rabbits and smaller mammals. Perhaps a move to breed in the Sheaf headwaters from Totley Rise is imminent. If so, it would be a welcome and stirring addition to our district wildlife.

John Kirkman

Dear Sir,
At the foot of Bushey Wood Road there is a building with this plaque, which reads 'ALMS HOUSES IN MEMORY OF ELLEN CARTER 1900'. I understand that Ellen lived at the Dingle, Woodland Place, Bradway, and that she was a member of the Carters of Little Liver Pills fame. Does anyone know anything further?

Brian Edwards

Dear Sir,
Though I do not ride horses in the Bradway area, I am absolutely certain that those who do so do not take "an almost sadistic delight" in riding on the footpaths as suggested by Bradway Badger in your last issue. They are driven there in an effort to save their horses and themselves from serious harm by the many speeding and reckless drivers who either have insufficient knowledge of the Highway Code or choose to ignore it.

Horses do not have a right of way on footpaths, or mown grass verges, but do have the right to travel along most highways.
It is unfortunate that pedestrians, who of course also suffer from the danger of speeding vehicles, have to step round horse droppings but better that than to come across a horse lying injured, or dying, in the road alongside an injured and distraught rider. There are, currently, 3,000 horse related accidents a year with 8 rider fatalities and several hundred horse deaths.

Years ago, the enlightened Derbyshire Police allowed riders in Holmesfield to ride on the verge alongside the main road in a effort to prevent accidents and, as far as I am aware, that still continues.

Blame for the problem rests with the drivers not with the horse riders. Riders' duties are to have taken the British Horse Society Road Safety Course and Test, so they know exactly what they should do in all situations, and to be courteous to other road users who show them the consideration and patience to which they are due.

Marian N. Tiddy (Mrs)

New nature reserve

The Sheffield Wildlife Trust is Sheffield's largest and most effective independent nature conservation organisation, working to improve the local environment for both people and wildlife. It is part of a national association of 46 local Wildlife Trusts, which work to protect wildlife in town and country.

Working with communities in towns, cities and the countryside throughout the UK: they campaign locally and nationally for wildlife; they provide expertise in all aspects of wildlife conservation; and they run an extensive environmental training and education programme. Together, the Wildlife Trusts have more than 320,000 supporters and care for more than 2,300 nature reserves, making them the biggest organisation in the UK working to protect all kinds of wildlife for the future.

Sheffield Wildlife Trust has recently been awarded £185,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to establish new nature reserves at nine of Sheffield's most valuable wildlife sites, covering more than 300 hectares of Sheffield's finest countryside. This includes a new nature reserve on Blacka Moor in Dore, for which the Trust will shortly be negotiating a 25-year lease with Sheffield City Council which owns it. This 180 hectare site with its rich mosaic of heather moor, woodland and peat bog, has recently been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in recognition of its importance for birds.

All the sites have been selected to include examples of most of Sheffield's most important natural habitats, high-lighted as priorities for conservation in Sheffield's Local Biodiversity Action Plan. They have also been selected to provide people with greater access to their local natural heritage by improving footpaths and other infrastructure.

There will be a wide consultation exercise to gather local knowledge, views and opinions on the future management of the reserves and each is to have its own local Reserve Advisory Group of interested people to assist with management.

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