Sheffield Live! Community Share Offer

Aim

To raise £150k to refurbish the former Tap and Barrel at 42 Waingate, Sheffield as a new centre for community arts and media

Become a co-owner of a new centre for community arts and media

At the corner of the site of Sheffield’s former mediaeval castle and looking across to Lady’s Bridge, is a property with the potential to become a vibrant location for new creative activity. The building at 42 Waingate is a former public house, originally called the Bull and Mouth Inn and more recently known as the Tap and Barrel. Its place and heritage at the centre of historic Sheffield presents a rare opportunity to bring community arts and media into the heart of the city, to celebrate the diversity of our voices and creativity, and to secure a unique and characterful property for community ownership and community use.

In April 2026 Sheffield Community Media Limited completed acquisition of the freehold land and buildings at 42 Waingate, with support from Key Fund, the social investment lender.

But this is just a start

To bring this wonderful and historic building back into public use, to realise its full potential and to ensure its long term ownership and maintenance as a major community asset will require significant planning and major investment in repairs, renewals and fitting out.

We invite you to join us in this Community Investment Offer, to become a co-owner in a unique part of Sheffield’s heritage and to help develop our vision for its future.

About us

Sheffield Community Media Limited (SCM) is a community benefit society established in 2012. We seek to educate, inspire and engage through media, creativity and social enterprise. Over more than a decade of operations our achievements include:

Providing studio facilities and hosting for Sheffield Live! community radio, African Voices Radio and for independent producers and programme makers;
Launching and operating Sheffield Live! TV as one of the UK's pioneering local television services operating under community ownership;
Establishing digital audio broadcasting infrastructure across Sheffield and Rotherham for community and specialist radio services including Link FM and Rother Radio;
Engaging more than 200 volunteers per year in media related activities;
Supporting over 500 social enterprises in South Yorkshire
Reaching local audiences in Sheffield and Rotherham of more than 30,000 people each week across television, radio and online platforms.

A new centre for community arts and media

The current building at 42 Waingate was constructed around 1927 as the Bull and Mouth Hotel and is mentioned in plans of that time for the wider Castle Hill Market development. It replaced a previous Bull and Mouth Inn dating back to 1790. Reports from the Sheffield Register in the 1790s show it was a meeting place for friendly societies and radical political groups including the Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information, one of the earliest of emerging popular movements to campaign for universal suffrage and parliamentary reform.

An earlier building close to this location is marked as “Alms House” on a 1736 Plan of Sheffield by Ralph Gosling, when the town had a population of just 9,685 people.

By the late 19th and early 20th Century the Bull and Mouth would have been part of a thriving working class entertainment district, stretching from Castlegate to West Bar. The neighbourhood was known for its circuses, fairgrounds, music halls and singing rooms.

The place and history represent an opportunity to reconnect with a vital, but often hidden, part of Sheffield's social and cultural heritage.

Our vision is to create a permanent home for community arts and media, creativity and co-operation while retaining the character of the former pub - a welcoming and accessible place with studios, performance areas, live events and a public café and bar.

We are planning the development in three phases. In a first phase, already underway, we aim to complete essential repairs and adaptations to enable the relocation of our existing studios and core operations. In the second phase we aim to bring the café, bar and function spaces back into public use, creating a new community hub and venue for music, live arts, events and creativity. In a third phase, for which grant funding will be needed, we hope to undertake more extensive repairs and improvements to accessibility, energy efficiency and use of space, including enhanced public access and development of the building's facilities.

The acquisition of the building coincides with major public investment in Sheffield's Castlegate Quarter, regeneration of the wider neighbourhood, including the new urban park, and growing demand for affordable creative and community spaces and infrastructure in Sheffield city centre, particularly with the demise of other independent venues.

Community shares and bonds

We are inviting the public to subscribe to our offer of Community Shares. Holders of Community Shares will be Members and co-owners of Sheffield Community Media and its collective assets, including this historic freehold property. The Society is democratically controlled by its community shareholders on a one-member one-vote basis.

We are also offering an opportunity for our new and existing community shareholders to invest in Community Bonds. These are fixed term investments of 1, 3 or 5 years, with no additional voting rights and fixed interest rates of 3%, 4% and 5% respectively. No member may hold more Community Bonds in nominal value than they hold in Community Shares.

Levels of investment

The minimum investment in Community Shares is £100 and the maximum is £50,000, including any existing shareholding in the Society. As a thank you for your support and contribution as a community shareholder we are offering the following recognition:

£100 – Community Supporter

Your name on our published list of supporters
Invitation to the launch event
A complimentary drink at the launch

£500 – Community Builder

All of the above
Plus a personalised commemorative brick on our Supporters’ Wall

£1,000 – Community Champion

All of the above
Plus an exclusive engraved Community Champion’s glass

£5,000 – Community Hero

All of the above
Plus invitation to an exclusive Heroes' event at the venue for you and up to 10 guests

Our fundraising target

Our target for this Investment Offer is £150,000. In case the target is not fully met, the project may proceed at a reduced cost or with additional grant or loan support. The minimum raise to proceed will be £75,000. The maximum of the combined community shares and community bonds that may be offered in this raise is £250,000 and the offer will close if that sum is reached. Any amount over £150,000 will be applied to further development, working capital or to reduce the financing costs of loans secured to support the refurbishment.

Further information

For additional background documents please visit:

sheffieldlive.org/shares