Rose Garden Cafe: Sheffield council spends £111,000 on scaffolding

The Rose Garden Cafe in Sheffield's Graves Park was opened in 1927

Scaffolding used to shore up a cafe in a Sheffield park has cost the taxpayer more than £111,000, new figures show.

The Rose Garden Cafe in Graves Park was shut at short notice in July 2022 due to structural concerns.

In October, Sheffield City Council approved plans to renovate the building, which dates back to 1927, instead of demolishing or replacing it.

The bill was revealed in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by the Friends of Graves Park.

The group was part of the campaign to save the cafe.

The possibility that the building, which now has a local heritage listing, might be condemned resulted in a public outcry and the launch of the group Save the Rose Garden Cafe, which joined forces with the Friends of Graves Park group.

The people of Sheffield will be consulted on plans to refurbish the building, the council says

More than 10,000 people signed an e-petition calling for the building to be repaired, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Both organisations are now working with the council to decide how best the building can be renovated and reopened.

In its response to the FOI request, Sheffield City Council confirmed a total of £111,505.23 had been paid to the scaffolding supplier to date.

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The authority said the cost had come from its facilities management revenue budget.

The cost of fully refurbishing the building could be as much as £1.7m, the council said, while structural stabilisation work with "light-touch refurbishment to cafe interiors only" would cost around £911,000.

Last month, the council said a city-wide consultation would look at what should be done to refurbish the building.