Transcribed interview - Lucy (Syd & Mallory) - Wednesday 29th November 2014

Interview with Lucy - Syd and Mallory - Wednesday 29th November 2014 - 1.30p.m

Can you please briefly introduce yourself and your business?

Hi...yeah. I'm Lucy Jo Newell and I run Syd and Mallory's Emporium on Devonshire Street with Kirsteen Hardy who's upstairs sewing, so it's a partnership but she's upstairs, busy.

Could you please describe the current demolition plans on Devonshire Street?

Yeah..well at the moment it's just going to planning to the council, so we've got a petition running to hopefully fight that but that's just the stage that we're at at the moment, we don't know what's happening until next week I believe.

What are the plans that are being proposed?

Erm, well, we found out via social media to start with which was the worst thing, so our landlords didn't even send us a letter or anything to tell us. Just that they're knocking down the last three buildings which is us, Rare 'N' Racy  and The Natural Bed Company and proposing to build A3 buildings which is cafes, bars, restaurants, etc. and flats above. So, er, no more independent businesses.


If you could give a message to the people behind the plans, maybe something that they might not necessarily already know about what it will mean to Sheffield, what would that be?

yeah, well I think its slowly getting less and less independent around this area and well, the whole city. Everything's getting knocked down and built into, well like as I say there's so many coffee shops and flats and empty like glass fronted buildings 'cause people can't afford the rents. So inflated rents in buildings like that...there's just not..there's going to be no one like us, like in future generations or well, in now,  like independent businesses can't pay that sort of rent so it's just going to be sterile, A3 units with coffee shops.

Do you have a favourite memory of the store?

Erm, of being in this building? Well we've only been in this building for a year and a bit but we've been in business for eight and a half years. So we've moved around the city. We started off down near the train station, then we got to The Forum - we had a shop in there for five years and then when we got here we finally thought this was, you know, the building we needed to be in, we need to be on Devonshire Street it's the independent quarter. We've got a studio on the top floor so everything is made in house, so everything that we do is in this building and it's great and we don't want to leave...but yeah I suppose that's it at the moment we just..we thought we'd found the place that we'd stay.


What do you like about the Devonshire Green area?

It is the independent quarter, it has been since the seventies. Rare 'N' Racy opened in sixty nine or something like that and it's just..this area's always been for this kind of retail, but it is smaller and smaller now and there's only about five shops on this road really so we don't want to lose any more.

So a lot of people have already signed the petition online already..

Yeah..(agreeing)

Do you think that people will be put off Sheffield as a city if the plans do go ahead?
yeah I think so, I think it's going to be more of a, I dunno like a.. LEGOLAND sort of city, like the same as every other city. Like, everyone's high street looks the same doesn't it? People come to this area for these shops and if there isn't any then they probably will just go to Manchester and other places.

What kind of positive feedback do you get from your customers?

Yeah, just that they love what we're doing, they love the label - they love that they can see that we're making clothes as well hand picking vintage. It's just there's not many shops like this is there? so there's always good feedback.

Why was Sheffield a good place to set up the store for you?

Erm, well we're both from Chesterfield so only down the road, but then also we always came as younger teenagers to The Forum  we'd always shop in there, cause they always had loads of independent business and basically we just thought we can do this and we shouldn't move to London to do it, as everyone does, so we need to do it in our city and so that's what we've tried to do.