How ten million litres of water saved the Peaks from a fiery destruction

Dear readers — a very warm welcome to your Monday briefing. We hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed the cooler temperatures.

Last Wednesday evening, the northern edge of our beautiful Peak District went up in flames as a wildfire spread from the rocky hills of Tintwistle Moor into a nearby canopy of trees. It took nearly two days to contain the fire and many more hours have been spent extinguishing the last embers. You can read all about that in today’s big story.

As well as that, we have news of a pest infestation at the Moor Market, a lovely home in Nether Edge, and the start of podcasting's biggest party.

A win for journalism: Our sister title the Liverpool Post has won its case against a TV historian who took them to court over an alleged breach of GDPR legislation. Laurence Westgaph sought to use GDPR rules to find out the names of sources who had claimed he subjected them to "sexual and domestic violence". However, the court sided with us that the journalism exemption to GDPR rules could be used to protect our sources. Fighting the case has cost us £75,000. However, in proving that the journalism exemption can apply to GDPR legislation, the ruling could have profound implications for press freedom in this country.

💼 Also, we’re hiring! Mill Media is looking for a talented senior editor to join our team, working from any of the cities we publish in (Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow or London), who can guide writers on complex and sensitive stories, inject urgency into a team and commission excellent freelance pieces. Pays £40-50k. Deadline is this Sunday.

✍️ And a reminder that you have until this Sunday 5 July to pitch us an idea that you’d like to write for The Tribune! One of our campaign pledges if we reached 1,000 new subscribers by 21 June was to nurture local talent by starting a new writer’s programme – every two months, we’re opening a call for pitches from people who aren’t already full-time writers or regular freelancers. If your idea is chosen, we’ll pay you a full fee and work with you to edit it and get it published. We’re offering feedback to everyone whose idea isn’t chosen, so you’d be mad not to try and pitch to us.

Pitch to The Tribune

In case you missed it

For our weekend read, freelancer Rose Mason looked into why the Pullins — a family who have run a fairground in this city for longer than Sheffield has even been a city — have been unceremoniously booted out of Endcliffe Park by Sheffield council. Earlier this year, the council awarded the contract for the site to another operator, Mason Downing, but many feel too much weight was given to financial considerations. “What Jon Pullin and his family has offered and given over the years has been precious and irreplaceable,” wrote Tribune member Nerissa Kisdon.

Joe Pullin and the Endcliffe Park funfair. Courtesy of Joe Pullin.

On Tuesday, Dan delved into a bizarre row about a grass verge in Ecclesall. The 87 square metre patch of grass at the junction of Dobbin Hill and Ringinglow Road has become the frontline in an unlikely battle between householder Guy Rawlins, who wants to buy it from the council, and a group of local residents, who want to stop him. “Blimey... first Ukraine, then Gaza... and now this local mega crisis to complete the trilogy,” wrote one reader.

And on Thursday, we published our first ever Good News Only edition, touching on pigeon rescue, a particularly special church organ and a story of unlikely friendship. Readers absolutely loved this burst of positivity. “I have been looking forward to this edition and it doesn't disappoint,” wrote Elaine Bird. “Well done for lifting the spirits.” Marion Dutton said: “This is the kind of stuff we don't hear about normally and it is so good to hear about ordinary people getting together to make the world a happier place.”

The big picture: Somewhere over the rainbow 🌈

Thanks to Instagram user Abdalla for letting us use this great photo of a rainbow rising over one of the Upperthorpe towers from the Ponderosa. To see more of his photos, click here.

The big story: How ten million litres of water saved the Peaks from a fiery destruction

Top line: Firefighters spent five days battling a wildfire at the northern edge of the Peak District last week, as temperatures soared to record highs for June.

What happened: At around 10pm on Wednesday, a fire broke out on Tintwistle Moor, near Woodhead Road in Glossop. By the time firefighters managed to get it under control on Friday afternoon, more than 500 square metres of moorland and woodland had burned.

Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service (DFRS) were assisted by United Utilities, the UK’s largest listed water company, who used a helicopter to dump water from a nearby reservoir onto the blaze. Lindsay Page, county business leader for United Utilities, says the helicopter did “around 2,000 trips” and poured around 10 million litres of water — the equivalent of “four Olympic-sized swimming pools”.

The cause: It is not yet clear what started the fire, though Page says she is “pretty certain it’ll be down to high temperatures and the dryness of the land itself” rather than any human error. High Peak MP Jon Pearce said in a statement that the public should “not light fires or use disposable barbecues” during record-dry conditions.

He added: “This fire has once again shown just how vulnerable our precious moorlands are during periods of hot, dry weather. The Peak District is one of our nation's greatest landscapes, but it is also incredibly fragile.”

At the scene: Andrew McEwan, a volunteer for Rapid Relief Team, who provided hot breakfasts and coffees to firefighters attacking the blaze, says: “The scale of it was huge. The winds were up on Thursday which meant the fire lifted into the canopies of the trees. Usually fires on the Peaks are low lying, but this one got a bit of momentum.”

Containing the fire: Derbyshire Fire and Rescue announced on 2pm Friday that their emergency intervention had “successfully contained” the wildfire and that “firefighters are now focused on damping down the area and checking for any remaining pockets of heat to prevent the fire from reigniting.”

While the fire is now contained, the threat is far from over.

When The Tribune called Derbyshire Fire and Rescue’s press team at 5pm on Friday, a media officer told us that the emergency services would remain at the site for a while to extinguish any remaining embers. “We’ll be there some time. It’s still very much ongoing,” they said, before hanging up the call.
Lindsay Page says emergency services remain at site today and drones are flying overhead determining where the hot spots are and where the fire is continuing. While her team has coordinated responses to many fires over the years, a particular challenge with this incident was the constantly changing wind direction, which meant the fire kept moving. “It felt like a chasing game at times,” she said.

Bottom line: Sheffielders experienced the hottest June day on record three days in a row this month. Such extreme hot conditions mean the ground is tinder dry and primed for burning. The Peak District National Park Fire Operations Group – the group that coordinates the emergency response to wildfires in our beautiful national park – will likely be wary of the months ahead.

Your Tribune briefing 🗞️

🪳 The Moor Market remains closed today after a “pest issue” was discovered on Friday. The market was closed immediately on Friday and remained so over the weekend while it was deep cleaned. Richard Eyre, the council’s director of street scene and regulations said the action was necessary “so that urgent action can be taken to protect public health and stop the issue from spreading further”. The council said they were "working at pace" to resolve the issue but were not able to confirm when the market will reopen.

Eyre thanked traders for their cooperation, but for the market to be closed on a Saturday — its busiest trading day — will mean many of them will take a major financial hit. The council haven’t confirmed what the pest issue was, but several comments online suggested it was an infestation of cockroaches, which thrive in hot weather and can be notoriously difficult to get rid of. If anyone has any more information, please get in touch on email or WhatsApp.

🏥 Sheffield is now the first English council to pass a motion urging the city’s NHS trusts to reject contracts with Palantir, a controversial US tech company which signed a deal with Israel two years ago to assist with “war-related missions” in Gaza. Three years ago, the UK government awarded a £330m contract to Palantir to deliver a Federated Data Platform for the NHS, which health secretary Wes Streeting said would ensure the health service is “brought into the digital age”. Green councillor Toby Mallinson, who proposed the motion last week, said he opposed outsourcing sensitive patient data “to a foreign provider that has built its reputation on immigration enforcement and defence surveillance”.

📽️ Curzon Cinema is closing after eleven years, saying that despite the “best endeavours” of staff, the business “never reached the admissions levels we had hoped for”. While Sheffield BID have taken a number of measures to try to attract shoppers to George Street in the past few years, including in 2024 unveiling a new mural that it insisted would “transform it into a vibrant, welcoming area”, the managers of Curzon said in a statement that “unfortunately, the bulk of the leisure and entertainment trade has moved away from the Castle Square area.”

🍝 It’s always nice when national food reviewers come to Sheffield and this time it’s the turn of the newly-opened Maria on Wellington Street. Another restaurant from prolific pair Jack Wakelin and Tom Aronica (Bench and The Pearl at Park Hill), Maria is inspired by Aronica's nonna and specialises in “bold takes on classic Sicilian dishes”. A well as an enjoyable intro about Sheffield’s “brilliantly cussed independence of spirit”, the review by Tony Naylor in the Observer is also full of praise for Maria’s food which he describes as a “a pedal-to-the-metal, amps-at-11, sensory assault of flavour and seasoning”. Which sounds nice.

The weekly Whitworth ✍️

Cartoonist James Whitworth with his take on the end of the heatwave. This week will see more civilised temperatures in the mid-20s. What shall we moan about now?

Home of the week 🏡

This two bedroom terraced house in Nether Edge has original period features, bay windows and an enclosed rear garden. £275,000.

Things to do 📅

Theatre 🎭 Tonight at Alder bar in Neepsend, join author Carmel Page for the premiere of Attercliffe Stupid Club, her new show about a real life social club set up during the Sheffield Outrages, a period of violent industrial conflict in the 18th century. Rather than violence, however, its members addressed the issues of the day with humour. The show, which Page will be taking to the Edinburgh festival fringe later this year, is free and begins at 7.30pm

Art 🎵 Paul Norton, the artist best known for the ecstatic, colourful mural art that adorned Pitsmoor club in its heyday, is offering members of the public a chance to contribute to a large-scale mural that will form part of an exhibition in memory of the club that saw Jimi Hendrix and Tina Turner perform. It takes place at Weston Park Museum and you can drop in any time between 10am and 3pm on Thursday, no need to book.

Podcasts 📻 Now three years old, the Crossed Wires podcast festival has quickly become one of the biggest events in the Sheffield calendar. There’s plenty to pick from on the lineup, but a live recording of the very popular Blindboy podcast and the politics and culture show If I Speak are sure to be highlights. There are also two open air stages; one at Leah’s Yard featuring local podcasts and one at Barker’s Pool featuring entertainment, food and drink.

Tour 🌼 Taking place between 10am and 2pm on Sunday are guided tours of the beautiful meadows at Manor Lane by the Green Estate, a social enterprise set up in the late 90s to look after the landscape around the old Manor Lodge. It’s your chance to find out from the Green Estate’s wonderful team what they’re doing to encourage more green spaces in the city and hear more about the history of the area. Tours are £10, and booking is advised.