The famous Sheffield Ski Village, once the largest artificial ski and board centre in the world and where several of Britain and the world’s best skiers and boarders trained, looks set to be rebuilt.
A £22.5m plan has been unveiled to build an extreme sports centre with established leisure company Extreme Destinations, which owns TV channel Extreme Sports and has worked on leisure developments for more than two decades announced by Sheffield City Council as the lead developer.
The ski centre was initially destroyed in April 2012 when arsonists burnt down the main building and has since been the scene of dozens and dozens of fires, travellers have also reportedly moved on to part of the site.
Alistair Gosling, Extreme CEO said, “This is a fantastic and unique opportunity to deliver an EXTREME Destination right in the heart of Sheffield and bring the much-missed ski facility bang up to date. We will be tapping into the world-wide phenomena of creating total active leisure destinations, where all the excitement of sport and leisure facilities come together – sports activities, accommodation, eating, drinking, shopping – in a totally immersive destination.”
Sheffield City Council opened bidding for developers on the site, initially not insisting that a ski slope had to be part of the re-development, however Extreme’s plans are for the ski slopes to be rebuilt in the project’s first phase, potentially re-opening by 2019.
The new development will take up just under 50 acres of the old Ski Village site and plans could also include an outdoor mountain bike track, indoor climbing wall and an indoor ski diving centre.
Councillor Mazher Iqbal, cabinet member for business and investment at Sheffield City Council, said, “Bringing Sheffield ski village and the surrounding area back into use as part of a truly global package of sports facilities, hotels and other leisure pursuits is a fantastic outcome for the team at Sheffield Council that has worked to secure a preferred developer with Extreme’s experience in delivering leisure based schemed for many years. There’s still plenty of work to do but by appointing our preferred developer we are one step closer to bringing the much loved ski village back into use.”
This video appeared in 2015:
The Sheffield Sharks Ski Club met at Sheffield Ski Village from 1990 to promote children’s skiing, both at recreational and competitive levels. Since the fire the Club has been meeting at Xscape, Castleford on Saturday mornings, 70 minutes’ drive north.
Famous skiers who first learned their craft at Sheffield include James “Woodsy” Woods (Men’s Ski Slopestyle), Katie Summerhayes (Women’s Ski Slopestyle), Ellie Koyander (Women’s Moguls, 2010 Winter Olympics) and Paddy Graham (Pro freeskier sponsored by Red Bull), most of whom were also active members of the Sheffield Sharks Ski Club during their childhood and early teenage years.
Hinting at a possible re-appearance of a long standing plan by the Ski Village’s former operator to build housing on part of the site to help fund it, a statement from Sheffield City Council concludes,
“EXTREME’s aim is to start work on a new and improved ski village to open in 2019 before concentrating on its plans to develop residential and leisure facilities around and on the site, subject to planning permission.”
