Millions of people around the world have been celebrating the Chinese New Year. The special event is also known as the Lunar New Year which begins on the second new moon at the start of the year and ends on a full moon fifteen days later. It’s always named after one of twelve animals, and 2016 is the year of the monkey.
Rotherham’s Tuesday Street Market has been awarded the ‘Best Large Outdoor Market 2016’ in the Great British Market Awards. The street market began with forty stalls to boost trade in the town on what was one of the quietest shopping days. Now there are ninety five stalls from All Saints Square across to Effingham Square. Judges were impressed with the market’s high footfall and good links with the local community. Advisory Cabinet Member for Jobs and the Local Economy, Councillor Denise Lelliott, told Kathryn Smiles how she felt about the award.
Tramlines have announced the first part of the line up for this year’s festival. Dizzee Rascal has been confirmed as the Headliner at the main stage on the Friday evening. The Tramlines Festival will take place across a number of Sheffield venues from Friday the 22nd to Sunday the 24th of July. Other acts announced for this year include Young Fathers, Dawn Penn, Goldie MBE. Last year’s event saw over one hundred thousand festival goers in the city centre.
A senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University has had a report published arguing for tighter restrictions on the endorsement of unhealthy food and drinks in sport. Dr Stuart Flint from the Centre for Sport and Exercise Science says Sports organisations should avoid sponsorship deals with unhealthy food and drink brands to reduce the risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. He told our reporter, Sal Saba more about the issue.
The Olympic Legacy Park on the old Don Valley Stadium site has begun to take shape, with the Oasis Academy Don Valley school open, and construction work underway on Sheffield’s second University Technical College. Now art work by Leap Design has been installed around the London 2012 Olympic legacy project. The work aims to highlight what people can get involved in when the park fully opens next year.
A scheme is being launched in the Burngreave area of Sheffield, to help tackle loneliness and social isolation. The Toolkit Project, organised by Age Better encourages volunteers to create a digital toolkit, which can be given to over seven thousand residents. It aims to help people realise if they are socially isolated, and offers them advice. The Age Better Campaign is run by the South Yorkshire Housing Association. They received six million pounds in funding over six years from the Big Lottery Fund.
The failure of pollsters to forecast the outcome of the general election last May was largely due to “unrepresentative” poll samples, an inquiry has found. The polling industry came under fire for predicting a virtual dead heat when the Conservatives ultimately went on to outpoll Labour by 36.9% to 30.4%. A panel of experts has concluded this was due to Tory voters being under-represented in phone and online polls. But it said it was impossible to say whether “late swing” was also a factor. The majority of polls taken during last year’s five-week election campaign suggested that David Cameron’s Conservatives and Ed Miliband’s Labour were neck-and-neck.
Over twelve thousand three hundred people have signed a petition to stop the sale of an 18th century cottage in Sheffield. Sheffield City Council expect to receive around eighty thousand pounds from the sale of Cobnar cottage, on Cobnar Road in Graves Park. The money is set to be spent on further investment in the park, including improvements to play facilities and footpaths. Sheffield City Council say ‘The cottage has been vacant for many years, sits outside the park boundary wall, forms a tiny fraction of the park, and has never been part of the public amenity of Graves Park.’ The council have no future use for the cottage, and say they do not plan to sell any other part of Graves Park.
Sheffield Forgemasters are set to cut up to 100 jobs in the next coming weeks. This follows the higher competition in the market and the recent fall of gas and oil prices. Sheffield Live caught up with Graham Honeyman, the Chief Executive of Sheffield Forgemasters to find out more.
Bins for disposing knives have been set in various locations across England to help reduce knife crime. Sheffield have also united with other cities in tackling the crime. Baillor Jalloh has more.