Sheffielders working and socialising in the city in the evenings are being forced into taking expensive taxis or risking walking home due to the lack of late-night public transport.

Nine out of ten people who responded to a Sheff Central survey think there should be buses and trams running later into the night.

One survey respondent said: “I think it’s awful that I finish work at midnight at Meadowhall and I have to get an Uber home when only half an hour earlier trams stop.

“What is the point of stopping trams this early- there are plenty of people using them late at night.”

Another respondent said: “As a woman without a car, I would also feel so much safer knowing that if I wanted to go out late on a weekend then I’d be able to get the bus/tram home, rather than taking taxis or walking in the dark, which I feel really uncomfortable doing.”

Most bus routes in Sheffield currently finish at around 11:30pm, with later buses running very irregularly. The last tram running from the city centre to Meadowhall is 11:43 pm.

Paul Vintin, 45, a student mentor from Sheffield said: “People need to be able to get to and from their places of work, leisure venues and alike at a time that suits their job or event that they are attending. Without them, the alternative might be walking late at night which can both feel, and be, unsafe.”

From October this year, just four bus services run across South Yorkshire after 10pm due to cuts to funding that were put in place to deal with the effect of the pandemic on transport.

For those who work in the hospitality industry, shifts often end late at night after the last buses have left.

However, Constituency Assistant for Sheffield Labour MP Paul Blomfield, Eleri Kirkpatrick-Lorente said the solution was not as simple as adding to the timetable.

She said: “It’s important to note that while our bus and tram services should allow people to travel home safely, extending the timetable is very difficult at a time when a third of our bus services in our region are being cut due to central Government funding decisions.”

The government department for transport was contacted and did not wish to comment.

There have been multiple attempts in the last few years to get night buses up and running in Sheffield, but these have been abandoned due to lack of custom.

To read more about the councillors who back the demand read here.