A failed hospitality scheme which led to the loss of £500,000 of public money came under intense criticism from councillors last night.
Members of the audit committee on the controversial Fargate container project have criticised a “lack of any context” around a damning report into the project’s failures.
The report, which was released last week and found that “project management practices were not followed”, was discussed at the council’s Audit and Standards Committee at Town Hall.
Designed to support post-pandemic recovery in the city centre, the container park was planned as a pop-up food and beverage space.
But after months of delays, internal squabbling and ever-mounting costs, it closed after just five months and was dismantled earlier this year. Individual containers have now been given to local community groups for their own use.
Councillors hoping to find answers on why the project failed so spectacularly were left disappointed when senior management were unable to answer their questions.
Referring to the report, Cllr Simon Clement-Jones (Beauchief and Greenhill, Liberal Democrats), said: “It does lack any context around the politics or the politicians at that time. I think it’s important that we know why this has happened. The decision-making process seems to be entirely opaque.”
Other councillors criticised the project’s lack of paper trail, with deputy council leader Cllr Fran Belbin (Firth Park, Labour and Co-operative) calling risk management procedures around projects like the Fargate containers “insufficient”.
“There really was very little evidence that there were any risk controls in place, or indeed that the proper processes were followed,” she said.
Chair of the audit committee, Cllr Mohammed Mahroof (Graves Park, Liberal Democrats), who lamented that “literally everything” went wrong with the project, said: “There were comments in the report that it was happening all ad-hoc, that a verbal culture was rampant. It does not read well at all.
“And for us to then note this here and agree with recommendations, I think would be doing a disservice to the members of the public that want answers on this.”
Cllr Lewis Chinchen (Stocksbridge and Upper Don, Conservative) cited “governance” as the reason for the project’s failure.
He said: “What really stood out to me from reading this report [was] that a project of this nature has so blatantly not followed the governance procedures.”
The report found that “the lack of controls and poor governance arrangements led to poor decision making and ultimately the project did not succeed.”
It also drew attention to the internal disorder that has beset Sheffield City Council in recent years owing to an alarming rate of staff turnover.
