The Foundry Sheffield aims to expand services into wider community

The Foundry Sheffield has been running the celebrated Norfolk Street listed building since 2015, ensuring its safety and operating it in the interests of all tenants, users and visitors, with the ultimate aim of improving the lives of people throughout the city.

In the past six months alone, the hall hosted 17 conferences, 123 smaller meetings, two craft fairs, 24 drop in sessions for refugee and asylum seeker support and 14 weeks of ITS courses.

There has also been a series of hugely successful concert performances, attracting new audiences to the hall.

Over Christmas, city charity Homeless and Rootless at Christmas ran a series of open sessions in the site’s Lower Hall, offering food and shower and laundry facilities as well as vital health checks and entertainment.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone, the charity served more than 100 breakfasts and Christmas dinners.

In the week running up to New Year’s Eve, the number of HARC service users grew as volunteers provided 769 breakfasts, 1,093 lunches and 900 takeaway meals.

To cope with the demands of so many different daily activities, The Foundry Sheffield is now employing a team of 12 staff, covering everything from facilities management to customer care and events and marketing.

“We have been overwhelmed by the amount of interest now being shown in the Victoria Hall and its fantastic range of facilities,” said The Foundry Sheffield chief executive Rose Durant.

“More people than ever before are now regularly using the facilities we offer at the Victoria Hall and the provision of support from the Future High Streets Fund means that vital improvement works will be taking place over the coming months that will mean the building is even more attractive and accessible.

“That means we are now very strongly placed to deliver the next chapter in the Victoria Hall’s story and we also aim to take The Foundry Sheffield to the next level.

“Our ultimate aim is to extend our services into other parts of Sheffield and that will probably mean taking the successful blueprint we are developing at the Victoria Hall and applying it to other sites.

“We have shown what we can do at the Victoria Hall so we believe we can support even more organisations and charities and develop other partnerships within the business community.”

To find out more about the full range of facilities currently available at the Victoria Hall visit visit www.victoriahallsheffield.org