Even if you’re not on first-name basis with the Pullin family, there’s a very good chance you’ve enjoyed the fruits of their labour, especially if you have young kids to entertain. Over eight generations and more than 120 years, this local dynasty has delighted Sheffield with the various tricks of their funfair trade: waltzers, gallopers, dodgems and more. According to 31-year-old Joe, the latest in a long line of Pullins to take over the business, Sheffield has been home to a fairground run by his bloodline for longer than it has even been a city, having received the royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1893. But now, it seems, that long history is about to come to an end.
“We've been in Sheffield doing this sort of thing for a very, very long time now,” Joe says, when we meet in Endcliffe Park to discuss the shocking news his family received three months ago. “We get people coming along going ‘my grandad used to bring my mum down, and now I'm bringing my kids down’.” In the kiosk where tickets are sold hangs a framed photo of Joe’s great-great-grandmother Winifred standing next to a ride in 1906. Their “flying chairs” ride was the last of its kind made in the famous H.P. Jackson factory before it shut down; Joe tells me it was commissioned shortly after his own father, Jon, was born in 1969. Even the music they play is all from his great-grandad’s vinyl collection.
Until fairly recently, the Pullins offered amusements in a number of local parks — they ran the swan boats in Millhouses Park for over a decade until 2022, and also operated rides in Graves Park. When the council decided to offer the contracts for these spots out to other operators, allegedly concerned by the fact one family was monopolising the local market, the Pullin clan took it on the chin. After all, they still had the contract for Endcliffe Park, a spot they’ve traded in for over four decades by this point. Venture past on most weekends and you’ll easily spot the long neck of their iconic giraffe bounce house stretching up towards the sky. “We recognise the giraffe is kind of our symbol now,” Joe tells me.
But in early March Joe had just popped round to see his 56-year-old father Jon, who helps him run the business, when a call came with some terrible news. A council officer politely informed them that, after all these years, the Pullins’ services were no longer required. The council had decided to let another company take over running rides in Endcliffe Park, which meant the family would need to pack up their giraffe and hit the road come November this year.
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Joe and his father were naturally disappointed, but they were also blindsided. When the council invited operators to bid for the site in January, as it had done at least every five years since they took it over, they were confident they would be awarded the contract once more. This was not just because of their long-standing relationship but also because, according to Joe, a council officer had assured them the previous year that they “were going to be offered a seven year contract this time round” — a claim the council had yet to respond to at the time of the writing. Thanks to this promised security, Joe dropped £12,000 on a new bouncy castle, which now looks like a grave error. “I’m only going to have that down here for three months over summer and then I’ll have to work out what I’m going to do with it,” he says bitterly.
After a few months licking their wounds, the Pullins finally let the Sheffield public know they would be leaving the park via a Facebook post last week. “Thank you for all the support you have given us over the past 40 years,” the post reads, “we wish there could have been more.” The comments were immediately flooded with fond memories from over the decades. “We absolutely loved the fair and your shouts of "Come on sliders!" cheered up many a park visit. We don't want you to go,” one commenter writes. Another adds: “You were always so generous and allowed them to play way longer if you were quiet…a sign of your character, generosity and kindness. It never felt about the profit for you.”
Amongst the nostalgia, however, many locals responded with outrage at the council’s decision. Did the Pullins long track record mean nothing? Who did the council possibly think could do a better job? This ire was duly noted by local Lib Dem councillor Barbara Masters, who alleged in a comment that she had been raising concerns “using all official channels” about the council’s tendering process for years. “Joe has received so many messages of support that we are setting up a petition to make the council aware of the strength of public feeling over the loss of a much-loved and valued asset,” she added. “We only get one chance with this.”
A few days later, I meet with Cllr Masters, Joe and his giant fluffy dog Tina in Endcliffe Park to discuss where they believe things went wrong. “We assume someone else has offered more money for the site,” Joe says, although he struggles to understand how the successful operator plans to make that work. “We’re already operating at… not quite a loss, but it's not a hugely financially viable thing.” At the time of our interview, he and his family had no idea who the council opted for instead. Having spoken to the other Sheffield showmen they know, they were fairly confident it wasn’t someone local.
In Joe and Cllr Masters’ view, the councillors who opted to cut ties with the Pullin family had failed to take the benefits of having a local operator into account. “Having a family-owned operation looking after this, it means the money spent in Sheffield circulates in Sheffield,” says Cllr Masters. “I don't know how much that is factored into the bids.” She suspects the council has been enticed by a promise of “maximum profit” and has disregarded “the community family feel”. She hopes to petition the council to make its method for assessing bids in cases like this more clear, such as by revealing how much weight is given to finances over other considerations.
When contacted by The Tribune, after initially ignoring questions about who had secured the contract, a council spokesperson eventually admitted it had been awarded to Mason Downing — the operator who runs the fairground in Hillsborough Park. (When I inform Joe of this revelation, he says he doesn't know Downing well and is unsure if he's based locally or not.) “The procurement process assessed bids against a range of criteria, including financial return, operational approach, and the ability to deliver a high-quality offer,” a council spokesperson explained. “While we recognise that Pullin’s have operated at the site for many years, all bidders were considered on an equal basis through an open and transparent process. The outcome reflects the overall evaluation of those criteria, not solely one factor.”
However, the council spokesperson also acknowledged that income generation is an important consideration for the city’s parks, which are run by charities of which the council is the sole trustee. “Like many public services, the costs associated with maintaining and managing parks have increased and continue to rise,” the spokesperson added. “The council has a responsibility to manage Endcliffe Park in a way that supports its long-term sustainability. This includes ensuring that appropriate income is generated from commercial activities on site, with any income reinvested back into the park to support its upkeep and improvement.”
Cllr Masters is not the only councillor with concerns about how the decision to axe the Pullins was made. When I reach out to Green councillor Douglas Johnson — who sits on the subcommittee that awarded the contract — he alleges that, at first, “the parks officers were primarily interested in the price that the operators would offer”. Prior to the meeting, he insisted the subcommittee needed to “get the full picture of the service the operators were proposing, including things like the cost and length of rides” before they made their decision. “As a result of my request, the officers did give the committee a bit more information than had been provided in the tender,” although this additional report was not made public. Unfortunately he was unable to attend the meeting where the Endcliffe Park contract was decided. “The decision was made only by the Labour and Lib Dem councillors and I don’t know what questions they asked.”
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Cllr Masters tells me she has had serious concerns about how the council treats the small businesses that operate out of its parks for over a decade now. “This is what gets me, the inefficiency of a council system which doesn’t treat the small stakeholders in our parks as a proper business.” Certainly, when I speak to the operators of other park-based businesses about their gripes with the council, I hear a very familiar set of complaints.
In nearby Bingham Woods, for example, I get chatting to Neil Midgley, the owner of a local chain of specialty coffee vans called Motore Cafe. Earlier this year, Neil received a very similar shock to the Pullins, when he was informed that someone else had won the contract for his site. The tendering process had felt like a formality, he tells me, which meant the rejection “was a bolt from the blue”. He challenged the decision, eventually offering to pay double what he had before, and managed to hold onto his spot.
When the new contract begins in October, the van in Bingham Woods will be “right on the edge of being viable”, although fortunately his other vans in Weston Park and Sheffield station should help prop it up. While he understands the council needs to make sensible financial decisions, he admits the process felt more cut-throat than he had expected. “I do feel like we've had to pay way over the odds,” he says, adding that his track record at the site had arguably helped make it attractive to other bidders in the first place. “I believe we've given it the value to start with, because it's just a bit of tarmac, fairly hidden. We've worked at it and spent a lot of money on the coffee and training for the baristas.”
Joe tells me he probably should have realised the writing was on the wall for his family when Cuneo’s, the beloved ice cream van that had traded in Endcliffe Park for 14 years, was forced out by the council in 2022. After the contract was awarded to the Devoti family, Cuneo’s van moved to Rustling Road just outside, although the council’s parks and countryside service has made several attempts to get it banned from this spot too in the years since.
Andrew Cuneo, a self-proclaimed straight-talking Yorkshireman, does not mince his words on this topic. “Why have the council chosen the other vendors, over us, over the fair or over cafes or anything?” he asks me rhetorically, when we chat over the phone. “They'll turn round and say money, they offer more money. But tenders are not just about money, they're about the quality, the service, the price structure and what's best for the people in that park.” Andrew would happily bet that Endcliffe locals will not enjoy the new funfair nearly as much as they have cherished the one run by the Pullins for all these years. “The prices are going to double,” he predicts darkly.
Of course, that remains to be seen when the new fairground begins trading, as does what the Pullins will do from November onwards. Over the phone, Joe tells me that, whenever someone asks him how they can help, he always has the same reply: “Just keep an eye out for a building or a field somewhere that looks appropriate for a bouncy castle and some rides.” In some ways, he adds, being forced out of Endcliffe Park might even be a blessing in disguise — now he and his father can operate how they choose, rather than jumping through the council’s hoops. “If no one knows what's going on and people will say one thing to you and do another,” he muses, “then why continue stressing yourself over dealing with them?”
