We walked up the hills from Sheffield city centre into the high ground at Crosspool as snow fell, and found both chaos and caring humanity on the way
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00:00 Well, if you live in Sheffield, it's usual to know the experience of walking through the snow.
00:07 Now, we usually find that when it's reasonably gentle snow in the city centre, it's really thick snow up at the top of the hills.
00:16 Well, I'm going to take a walk from the city centre up to the higher ground, further towards the outskirts of the city, and just see what it's like.
00:24 I'm just leaving here, which is just near the pocket park, near our office.
00:30 Well, it's 20 past 11 and I'm on West Street. You can see here behind me that the snow is starting to stick in the city centre, so let's move along.
00:40 Well, it's now half past 11 and I've just passed the ring road, where it joins West Street and Blottup Road.
00:52 You'll see that the snow is already getting thicker as we get further out of the town centre, so let's carry on along Blottup Road.
01:02 Well, you can see here the buses are still making it. There goes a 51, just joining the main road on Blottup Road.
01:15 Well, I'm continuing along Blottup Road and I'm now just close to the Doctors' Order pub.
01:22 Now, it doesn't seem as though I've come much distance in terms of any height, but you can already see the difference in the snow.
01:28 There's snow on the road now, and you can feel the snow beneath your feet. It's got that sort of crunchy feeling underneath as you take your steps already.
01:36 So, already you can tell the difference between the city centre and further out.
01:42 OK, it's 20 to 12. As you'll see, it's still snowing, and you can certainly see here just outside the Halamdshire Hospital that there's a lot of evidence of that snow now.
01:53 You can see a lot of the snow, although they've done a good job on the main footway here. It's all been gritted.
02:00 Just have a look behind me.
02:03 You can see that it's pretty clear around there.
02:10 And you also see lots of traffic queuing behind me along there.
02:15 OK, well, we're at Broom Hill now, and it's just gone 10 to 12.
02:28 And you can see there is now quite a considerable amount of snow. You can really see the difference now in the amount that's on the ground.
02:36 It's probably nearly an inch, I would say, at a guess, which is not by any means the worst that you'll get in Sheffield,
02:43 but it's a massive increase from what we were seeing on West Street earlier.
02:48 And also, at the junction here with Glossop Road, I've heard the sound of wheels spinning as they failed to get a grip for the first time.
02:57 So, we're going to continue, and I think we're going to take the steeper option and head up towards Crosspool from here.
03:05 See you later. Bye.
03:08 Could you tell me what you're doing here today in Broom Hill?
03:17 Yeah, I'm just digging out the snow to make it easier for our patients to come in and out of the surgery without falling.
03:25 As you can see, it's already difficult trying to get through to Sheffield, but people do need to still see their GP.
03:32 So, we're just making it easier in and out of the entrance of the surgery.
03:35 And how have you found the snow today?
03:37 A bit difficult trying to get to work. We don't know how we're going to get home from work.
03:45 But, yeah, it'll not stop us, hopefully. We'll carry on.
03:58 Okay, so we're on Manchester Road now, just a little bit up from Broom Hill.
04:03 And, just let me tell you the time. It's nearly five past twelve.
04:07 Now, you'll see behind me there's a car that's not moving anywhere.
04:10 Behind him, I've just helped push a car that was clearly struggling with the snow and was struggling to get up the road.
04:20 The driver, I think, has now pulled to the side of the road and possibly has given up trying to get further up the road.
04:28 So, we are now beginning to see big problems with the traffic and we're not even in the highest, very highest points of the city yet.
04:37 Tell me about your experience in the snow today, please.
04:40 Well, I've set off back early from work to work from home this afternoon.
04:44 I've got as far as here and the road's just too bad. I've had to abandon my vehicle further down.
04:49 Manchester Road?
04:50 Manchester Road, yeah, towards Crosspool.
04:52 Is it as bad as you were expecting or is it worse than you were expecting?
04:55 It's got a bit worse than I was expecting. I would have set off an hour earlier if I'd known.
05:00 Tell me what your plans are in the snow here today.
05:03 Well, school's been closed early.
05:05 Which school's that?
05:06 Tapton. I'm a builder and I've been stuck on a house in Crosspool, so my van's left there and we're travelling to the other side of Sheffield.
05:14 And then we're just going to go sledging all afternoon.
05:18 Well, having got to Crosspool, it turned out that there was a bus stuck at the top of, I think it's Salborne Road,
05:25 and there was a group of school kids, presumably from Tapton or King Edward's, trying to give him a shove to help him get up to the end.
05:33 Finally, he managed to get up to the top of Salborne Road and turn right.
05:38 I don't think he's likely to be going any further, but I don't know what the bus companies have said in terms of any updates.
05:44 [Sounds of the bus]
06:10 OK, so the time is now... Bear with me one moment.
06:15 It's 20 past 12, so I've walked up from West Street in town to Crosspool, and you can see behind me, the traffic along Manchester Road is absolutely solid.
06:27 It appears to be pretty chaotic on the roads here right now.
06:32 And I think this goes to show what a difference there is between the small smattering of snow that we've got in the city centre at the moment
06:40 and the disruption that we've got out in the higher parts of Sheffield.
06:51 Between getting to Broom Hill and reaching Crosspool, that short period of journey has been the section of the journey where all the issues have been.
07:03 That's the journey where we've seen people having to grit, that's the section where we've seen people having to get out and push cars, where we've seen people having to abandon cars.
07:12 And you can see also behind me, the traffic here on the middle of a weekday is pretty heavy.
07:22 So, I'm going to stop here and head off back to our office, because I've got to get home as well.
07:31 But I think, I certainly hope that you've enjoyed having a look at the journey through Sheffield on a heavy snow day.