Hinterlands

This article resonates with me very much, as I am someone who has often gazed at the iconic Park Hill flats in Sheffield, a City I have loved as a leisure and learning location for years.

It explains. “No visitor to Sheffield can have failed to notice them. Perched high on the rise overlooking Sheffield station, Park Hill flats have been variously described as a fortress, a prison block and by almost everyone as a blot on the landscape. And yet, 50 years ago tomorrow on 16 June 1961, it all seemed so different as Hugh Gaitskell, the leader of the Opposition, arrived in Sheffield to open the newly built Park Hill council estate. The first residents had already moved in but a new batch was about to arrive as Gaitskell unveiled a plaque to commemorate the occasion.”

We recently finished a report on the rural economy of Sheffield and I reflected that you could just about look from these flats into the Peak District National Park. Makes me reflect on the interconnectedness of rural and urban England and the importance of understanding their interdependence as much as their differences.