How Sheffield's once-great Ski Village plummeted downhill into a ruin - as plans emerge for its revival
Plans for the Ski Village site are moving forward
Just 15 years ago, it was one of the biggest attractions in Sheffield. Today, ‘the Ski Village is on fire again’ is a commonly heard phrase.
Brown-coloured road signs across Sheffield directing motorists to the Ski Village still dot the city as if the slopes are still ready and waiting.
But the hills of Parkwood Springs are a sorry sight today. The slopes of what was once Europe’s biggest artificial ski slope have been reduced to nothing but bits of twisted metal, plastic and matting sticking out of the ground.
But after years of false starts, arson attacks and quips about the fallen tourism hotspot, plans may finally be on the cards to revive the village - with ziplines, Luges and, yes, dry-ski slopes all on the cards.
In light of the tantalising developments, here is a fly-by history of the Sheffield Ski Village - its glory days, its destruction, and the slew of discarded planning proposals meant to raise it from the dead.
Europe’s biggest artificial ski slope
The Sheffield Ski Village opened in 1988 with a £2.5m investment by Sheffield entrepreneur John Fleetham, and was principally built out of Dendix, a kind of wire frame discovered in plastic bristles.
It was a prize no other city in England could claim and over the next decade developed a huge offering, including nursery slopes and more challenging runs like ‘Adventure Mountain,’ to a freestyle park with half pipes and grind rails, to even a toboggan run and and aerials ramp.
Eventually it grew to eight different slopes, and in 1994 was complimented with the construction of a ski lodge, bar and shops - followed by a ten pin bowling alley, laser tag, a mountain bike track and room for quad biking.
The community around the Ski Village also grew, with school programmes and several clubs in the city calling it home, while athletes and Olympians like Ellie Koyander, James Woods and Katie Summerhayes used it to train.
It even had its own costume mascot - the Ski Village Yeti.
But all this was lost in the course of one devastating year.
‘The Ski Village is on fire again’
Many credit the fire in 2012 that spelled the end for the Ski Village, but it wasn’t the first fire to hit the resort. In March 2011 the adventure playground at the village was destroyed after a suspected arson attack.
However, at 1am on April 29, 2012, the Ski Village burned down, and it was never the same again.
Five fire engines and 25 firefighters battled to put out the blaze at the Village’s main building. Anyone awake at that hour saw the roaring orange flames on the hillside. A BBC report on the day suggests 3,000 litres of water a minute was pumped out to fight it.
It was ruled an accident. The ones that came afterwards were not.
Three days later, on May 1, 2012, a hut containing the controls for the ski lift was set alight deliberately and destroyed.
Then, three weeks later, on May 21, the nursery slope was partially destroyed by a third fire, again started deliberately.
On April 24, 2013, nearly a year to the day of the main building fire, two teenagers set fire to a cafe and the remaining wooden buildings on Adventure Mountain. They were sentenced to youth orders in August and spared prison.
A BBC report suggested the remains of the resort had suffered up to 50 arson attacks by August 2016.
That number has only risen and risen since then, and fires are seemingly set on the village and the hills of Parkwood Springs more than once a year.
There is even a dedicated website - www.istheskivillageonfire.com.
Is there a future for the Sheffield Ski Village?
Numerous developments to bring the Ski Village back to life have been proposed, explored and discarded in the past decade.
Plans were put forward In 2017 suggesting that leisure company Extreme would redevelop the site as an sports centre, and was even handed a £4.9m loan by the city council, but the scheme never materialised.
Now, after years of rumours, New Zealand company Skyline Enterprises has announced its commitment with Sheffield City Council to see the Ski Village ride again, with £19million in Government Levelling Up money to make it happen.
Only time will tell if the long-lost view of the slopes in their glory days will return to Parkwood Springs.