Video: Inside Sheffield’s reinvented Park Hill flats

Urban Splash unveiled its first show flats in Sheffield’s Park Hill complex in September 2011 and although the firm will not confirm figures it has been reported that less than 20 purchases have completed.

A new open day is set to be held tomorrow in a bid to attract more interest in the scheme, which has received around £30m of taxpayers’ money through the Government’s Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

The new campaign to attract buyers trades on Sheffield’s musical heritage, using lyrics from bands like Human League and Heaven 17 and posters are going up around the city and further afield.

Earlier this year, Urban Splash’s chairman Tom Bloxham told the Yorkshire Post the company had people interested in 45 of the 52 flats which are available to buy in the first “flank” of the project.

Urban Splash plan to develop each of Park Hill’s blocks, which contain more than 900 flats in total, in turn - with cash generated by the sale of each block being used to drive the project forward.

Yesterday. a spokesman for the company said it was not possible to say precisely how many flats had actually been bought because some buyers were half way through the legal process to purchase.

Under the agreement with the HCA, some flats have been set aside for a housing association to rent out, and as the Yorkshire Post reported last week, 12 are now available on a shared ownership scheme.

In total, 200 of Park Hill’s flats will eventually be owned and managed by Manchester-based Great Places Housing Group for rental, with 26 of the first 78 set to be available under the deal.

A spokesman for the Park Hill development said Urban Splash was happy with its sales performance so far and described interest in the properties as “very good in the current market”.

One of the first people to complete on a purchase, Kathy Price, from Conisbrough, near Doncaster, said she was “very excited” about the prospect of moving in.

The 63-year-old retired teaching assistant and her husband David, 67, a former support worker for adults with physical and learning disabilites have put all their savings into their dream.

Mrs Price said: “We had lived in our three-bedroom semi for 32 years and brought our two sons and our daughter up there and we decided we wanted to downsize.

“Our son is very interested in architecture and he first put us onto the idea of Park Hill and when we went to see it we thought that this might be our last chance to do something really different.

“I have been going into Sheffield since I was a teenager, and I have always been aware of Park Hill and all its previous incarnations.

“I remember seeing an interview with a woman who was one of the first tenants who described her flat as a penthouse and I think there was a real community there at one time.

“I hope that can be recreated with this new project, we don’t want it to be exclusive.”

Under the deal with Urban Splash the HCA and other public funders including English Heritage, will get a share of the profits of the scheme, so if the revamp succeeds the taxpayer does well, but if it doesn’t the money will not be paid back.

It is understood that Urban Splash is currently in negotations with a number of business tenants for the units in the ground floors of the first flank with an announcement due in the next few weeks.

Along with its work to overhaul the Grade II* listed Park Hill, Urban Splash has also been behind major regeneration projects in West Yorkshire including Saxton Gardens in Leeds and Lister Mills in Bradford