LOCATION
3 miles NE of Sheffield. Next to Junction 34 of the M1 motorway, and has dedicated lane taking traffic off the motorway. Below the Tinsley viaduct which crosses the Don valley.
Also on the edge of the outer ring road of Sheffield: dual carriageway for most of its length. Integrated with other local road network.
Eastern end of lower Don valley - close to Sheffield Arena, and other redeveloped areas
Around 8 million people live within an hour's drive of Meadowhall.
Cities within an hour's drive include: Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Barnsley, Wakefield, Doncaster and my home town Rotherham
Go to the MEADOWHALL website for more, or try MULTIMAP for a map of the centre.
SITE
Flat land, the former site of a steelworks: Hadfields Ltd, which closed in 1984. I took some pictures of the former site as part of a piece of work for my 'A' level Photography coursework. They may still be around somewhere: I'll go up in the loft some time and take a look.
The River Don passes the northern edge of the site. The banks and the area around the river have been landscaped.
Centre is built on 2 levels, providing retail and leisure facilities. The main entrance brings people in on the 2nd floor, as research suggests that not everyone can be bothered to go upstairs if they come in on the ground floor of a shopping mall.
Almost 300 shops and restaurants. There are a series of anchor stores: Marks and Spencers and Debenhams are examples of these. Once these stores were in place, the others followed.
HISTORY
The centre was started in 1988, after an effort to remove a huge amount of contaminated material from the former steelworks.
Cost of building the centre was around £275 million.
Centre opened on 4th September 1990, and has been open for over 10 years, which seems to be amazing.
THE SUCCESS OF THE CENTRE
Shoppers tend to spend more than those in other similar centres, and tend to be of a higher social class.
Most of the retailers in the centre are in the best performing retailers in the country.
An average of 160,000 cars per week visit the centre.
Most people stay for over 2 hours.
There are almost 13 000 free parking spaces organised into colour coded car parks so that people have a chance to locate their vehicle.
PTI (Passenger Transport Interchange) integrates buses, coaches and trains, plus the famous Sheffield Supertram, which arrives at the centre every 10 minutes throughout the day.
The centre is in the lower Don valley, which also features a number of associated retail developments:
Meadowhall Retail Park
Sheffield Arena: 25 000 seat arena, completed in 1991 - seen a lot of concerts there over the years - also used for the local ice hockey team: the Steelers.
Carbrook Hall Office Park - behind the pub of the same name...been in there quite a few times over the years.
Don Valley Stadium - athletics stadium, also used for other sporting venues and open air concerts
If you call in at the centre you can pick up a useful resource pack from Customer services.
For a more detailed version of this article, head over to the KEYFILES at GeoProjects.