All aboard the magic tour of the UK’s outdoor city

COMMENT Welcome to Sheffield. A city bursting with investment, innovation and opportunity. The University of Sheffield’s Diamond building is the symbolic home of the largest university investment in engineering research in the UK. A building where innovation is in abundance and where Dr Moaed Al Meselmani, a visiting researcher from Syria, is working with the university on its Desert Garden project – a scheme that could see mattresses solve world hunger. Heading downhill from the Diamond building towards the town and city halls, you will find the £500m, council-backed Heart of the City redevelopment, where forgotten courtyards are being revived with hospitality, welcoming Radisson Blu, and combining residential, office, co-working and retail to make a truly liveable city centre. Just across the road by the beautiful Peace Gardens is Fargate, the recipient of a £15.8m Future High Streets Fund bid, which leads you down to the city’s 12th century cathedral, and then on to the newly developed Fitzalan Square. This new public realm forms part of Sheffield Hallam University’s £220m campus masterplan and Knowledge Gateway project, which sits opposite the entrance to Castlegate – the recent recipient of £20m of levelling-up funding. Reinvigorated purpose Castlegate is one of the most exciting regeneration areas in the north of England. All around the old Co-Op building (now called Kollider, containing a Barclays Eagle Lab, National Video Game Museum, foodhall, art space, boutique shop and production space), there’s a reinvigorated purpose to this rough-around-the-edges area, thanks to a pop-up skatepark, cafés and arts projects which all encircle the site of Sheffield Castle. Turning left, we head through the West Bar development, where Legal & General has just invested £150m. We then drop down the hill towards Parkwood Springs, where £1.25m is being spent to create trails and an outdoor visitor destination. We are now arriving in Kelham Island, where the steel used to build New York’s Brooklyn Bridge was manufactured. It became derelict following the decline of the industry but is now a thriving hub of brewers, makers, artists, foodies and, soon, boutique hotel visitors. All mixed together with residential, retail, hospitality and office space. Let’s now amble along the River Don to the recently completed phase two of Grey to Green, a project that has landscaped arterial roads into pedestrian routes and public spaces. The area features climate-cooling plants, wildflowers and world-leading drainage technology to combat flood risk. You can enjoy the view from one of the new independent bars and cafés at Victoria Quays, glancing up to see the Park Hill flats, now being redeveloped by Urban Splash and Places for People, which are reimagining community and cultural living along the iconic Streets in the Sky. After a drink following the Five Weirs walk along the canal, past the Salmon Pastures Nature Reserve (yes, we have wild salmon in the Don after being absent for 220 years), you’ll reach the site of the Olympic Legacy Park, the only one in the world in a non-Olympic-hosting city. Already boasting the English Institute of Sport and a University Technical College, the area now also hosts Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre. Soon this location will be home to the world’s first Centre for Child Health Technology. World-leading disruptors Amid all this we have flourishing creative and new media industries, thanks to the development of existing companies such as WANdisco and Zoo Digital, as well as bringing companies like Jellyfish to the city and watching Rise at Seven become one of the UK’s fastest-growing agencies. Sheffield is a world leader in education tech thanks to Twinkl and its recently launched TwinklHive accelerator. Our digital and tech firms such as Razor (just listed in the FT 1000 rankings), The Floow, Sport80 and Opteran are inventively disrupting at rapid pace. That is without mentioning the continued success of PlusNet and ITM Power, or the fact that firms like HSBC and CMS Law committed their future to the city last year. Out of breath? We are just getting started. Sheffield’s qualities and momentum are really standing out. That is why we have recently been ranked the UK’s most sustainable city and the best UK city for a European city break, and we continue to be the world’s leading city for green space. Martin McKervey is chair of the Sheffield Property Association Image courtesy of SPA