Park café repairs approved after four-year campaign

Campaigners calling for the full restoration of a park café are celebrating a "huge milestone" after planning permission was granted for renovation work.

The Rose Garden Café in Sheffield's Graves Park closed suddenly in 2022 due to structural concerns, with its indoor seating area reopening in August 2024.

It was threatened with demolition before lobbying by The Save the Rose Garden Cafe Campaign and Friends of Graves Park forced Sheffield City Council to rethink.

The council has now granted planning permission for a single-storey side extension, the rebuilding of the front elevation and the reroofing of the building.

Other work approved involves the installation of new windows and doors, rooflights, solar panels and air source heat pumps, plus the refurbishment of existing features.

Planning permission allows the community partnership to go ahead with funding applications to much larger funders and charitable trusts for the restoration work.

Campaigner Liz Hnat said: "It's an absolutely huge milestone for us.

"It was so welcome and so exciting because it really now unlocks the ability for us to prove to potential funders that we've got the full approval that we need and that's a real boost."

Hnat said the underpinning of the front wall was the main issue, but there is also plans for a covered seating area, changes to the kitchen and creating accessible toilets.

The full restoration would have an overall cost of £2.6m, with work broken up into phases, she added.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, a recent meeting of the partnership discussed the success of a summer of public fundraising which had almost reached its initial £37,500 target to fund phase one.

Fundraising will also be boosted by a series of events to celebrate the centenary of the cafe next year.

Hnat concluded: "We're doing a lot of work as a partnership to think about that legacy and think about how the building will be used in the future - to hopefully keep it maintained and keep it part of the park for the next 100 years as well."

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