Sheffield Ski Village: City Council reveals three-year timeline for design of new road to troubled site

Some £405,000 has been earmarked for technical surveys, site investigations and the design of a new route to the site at Parkwood Springs.

It will be the first step in an outdoor leisure destination set to be created with £19.4m from government, announced in November 2023.

A report to Sheffield City Council’s Finance Committee states the project will be completed in 2028.

The authority first announced plans to redevelop the former Ski Village in 2017, leading to a £25m deal with Extreme Destinations the following year.

In 2020, the council won a £6m grant to improve access to the site, which is through a single-lane railway tunnel on Bardwell Road.

In 2021, Extreme’s proposed access arrangements were ‘found to be complex and delivery would be challenging on the timescale required by the grant funding,’ a council report states.

Work on the road design stopped, the grant was reallocated and the agreement with Extreme ended.

In November 2023, it was announced Parkwood had won £19.4m from the Levelling Up Fund for a new road, a clean up and new mountain bike trails and paths.

In December last year, the council said it was still in discussions with New Zealand company Skyline about a ‘gravity park’ with toboggans and zip wires but ‘on the clear understanding that dealing with the site’s access and the condition of the site itself was needed before Skyline would be able to take forward any proposals’.

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Other access options considered during Extreme’s tenure were a road across the old Viridor landfill site and a road from Oakham Drive on Parkwood Industrial and Trade Park, off Rutland Road, to Douglas Road or Vale Road, avoiding the railway tunnel.

The original Ski Village opened in 1988 and attracted visitors from across the North and Midlands.

It was destroyed by fire in 2012 and suffered repeated arson attacks.

Today, the 51-acre Sheffield Ski Village is derelict and overgrown.