‘Vestry-ed interests’: Who is trying to gatekeep this historic hall?

It’s like something out of a riddle. Over a series of phone calls back and forth, two men from Burngreave — Mohammed and Mohamed — both insist they are the one telling me the real truth about Vestry Hall, although they cannot both be right. Both are adamant that their primary concern is ensuring that this beautiful council-owned building, refurbished with £3 million from the national government, can be enjoyed by all residents of one of the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

“I’m just motivated to make sure the place is accessible for the entire community, not just a tiny few,” says Mohamed Ali, a 34-year-old science teacher at Firth Park Academy. “Vestry Hall's potential is really obvious to everyone, but it's just lying there getting dusty. It's basically empty.” With the help of the local branch of ACORN union, he has spent years urging Sheffield council to let volunteers take over some of the responsibilities of running the building, in the hopes they can bring the building back into proper use. Though he says the “Take Back Vestry Hall” campaign submitted a detailed proposal for how this would work, so far the council has shown little interest.

Those behind the campaign are struggling to understand why. “A lot of our members have been confused that the council wasn't biting our hand off,” says Misha Feinstein, a 27-year-old ACORN employee. “We had lots of people ready to dig into this project and we felt the council treated us more like a threat.” He says the union’s members have “probably knocked on every door in Burngreave” to drum up support and received an overwhelmingly positive response. “It’s a galling idea: this beautiful building in the heart of the area, which has had millions spent on it, being underused.”

But Mohammed Issa, the owner of a care company with offices on the top floor of Vestry Hall, believes the campaign to “take back” Vestry Hall is built on falsehoods. “When some people say this building is underused, that’s fake.” The lower floors are booked all the time by community groups, he insists, something which he fears would change if the volunteers were given their way. “If they took over, I can tell you, the community in the area will stop using it.” He believes the absolute best option for Vestry Hall is for the council to continue to run it exactly as it has done for the last 15 years. “This building should remain open for all, with fair treatment and fair access,” he says, “and that’s what the community is experiencing at the moment.” 

Indeed, the older Mohammed dismisses ACORN as a group of outsiders looking to invade a local building for their own, possibly sinister, ends. “This campaign has nothing to do with what’s best for the community, it’s all for ACORN’s gain,” he insists. He’s so determined for the building to remain how it is that he submitted a petition with 185 signatures to the council, urging them not to hand Vestry Hall over. “They have a bad agenda, we can’t trust them,” he claims. “Someone spreading fake information can’t be expected to be fair when managing a building.”