A MASSIVE £390m South Yorkshire leisure project has moved a step nearer after a formal agreement for the scheme to go ahead was signed.
The YES! Project promises to be Europe's largest covered leisure, entertainment and sports complex which will attract £350m of investment and create up to 3,000 jobs.
Now Oak Holdings and Rotherham Council have signed a Development Agreement at Rotherham Town Hall giving the formal go-ahead for the project.
YES! - earmarked for a 327-acre site at Pithouse West adjacent to Rother Valley Country Park - will feature more than one million sq ft of entertainment facilities, say developers.
Attractions will include a four star spa, a theatre complex set to be the largest outside the West End, a conference hotel, exhibition centre, golf range, hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes and shops.
And as part of an extreme sports centre there will be an Olympic-scale white-water kayaking course.
Work is expected to start around the end of this year and be complete by 2012.
Rother Valley Country Park next to the proposed project has been accepted on the list of potential 2012 Olympic training bases.
Oak Holdings already has a deal with BT, E.ON, Baydrive Golf and extreme-sports specialist Venture Xtreme, and with Sheffield-based Steelers Hockey Team to create the UK's first purpose-built ice-hockey arena.
Oak Holdings chief executive Steve Lewis said: "The signing formalises the cabinet's approval and we can now move confidently towards gaining tenant commitment.
"Rotherham is just the supreme location - more than a million people within 30 minutes' drive and half the UK population within two and a half hours."
Rotherham Council leader Coun Roger Stone added: "This is a significant milestone in bringing the YES! Project from vision to reality.
"The development will boost not just the local but the regional economy. And together with other visitor destinations across South Yorkshire it will really put the area on the leisure, sport and entertainment map."
The agreement contains the terms for a 250-year lease of the development site.
What do you think? Add your comments below.
READ MOREMain news indexYour letters.
FeaturesMore Rotherham newsMore Doncaster newsMore Barnsley newsCheck out the very latest on South Yorkshire's roads - including live traffic cameras on Sheffield's commuter routes - with our Traffic sectionLatest sport. The full article contains 397 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.
