Sheffield Ski Village: Council set to spend £12m on new road to leisure site
Sheffield City Council is set to spend £12m on a new access road to the Ski Village site.
The route, deemed ‘essential infrastructure’ is more than half of a £19.4m government grant to redevelop the site into a country park.
After years of planning, officials appear to have settled on creating a link from Rutland Road, through Parkwood Industrial and Trade Park, to Douglas Road.
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It would mean buying land and moving a business, a report to Sheffield City Council states.
The full costs are unknown because ‘negotiations are ongoing’ but they could ‘jeopardise the affordability of the wider Parkwood programme’.
A Sheffield City Council spokesperson said the issue would be discussed at a Finance and Performance Committee meeting before the end of 2025.
A contract to build the road is set to be awarded next year, they added.
The original approach via a tunnel on Bardwell Road is deemed to be too narrow.
All the money for the Ski Village project must be spent by March 2028, according to government rules.
Meanwhile, a clean-up of the site is set to start this month, the spokesperson said.
They added: “Proposals for the site clearance work have been developed and the first element of that work will commence this month. Regular dialogue has also continued with the preferred operator during this time.”
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.
The authority first announced plans to redevelop the 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.
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’.
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’.
Today, the 51-acre former Sheffield Ski Village is derelict and overgrown.