Oak Holdings and Rotherham council have submitted an outline planning application for the £300m YES! project, a leisure and entertainment scheme in South Yorkshire.
YES! will regenerate 320 acres of brownfield land adjoining the Rother Valley Country Park, Rotherham, close to junction 31 of the M1.
Pithouse West coal mine and coking plant were located at the site, but it has been disused for several years.
Steve Lewis, chief executive of AIM-listed developer Oak Holdings, said: “This is yet another important milestone in advancing the YES! project.
“Although the application has been submitted later than originally planned, we understood the importance of appointing a number of key anchor tenants to strengthen the application further, which we have accordingly done,” he said.
“We are now in a much stronger position having also gained significant political and local support, which should benefit the development going forward.”
Rotherham Economic & Development Services’ executive director, Adam Wilkinson, said: “There’s a rigorous planning process ahead, but we’re confident Oak can meet the criteria.
“Once that’s complete, we’ll be creating more than a development – it will be a vision of how future leisure attractions could take shape.”
YES! will feature over 1m sq ft of entertainment facilities with supporting infrastructure that include a unique combination of a major theatre complex, extreme sports centre, major indoor entertainment facilities, four-star resort spa and conference hotel, exhibition centre and golf range, along with restaurants, bars, cafés and festival retailing.
The new theatre, set to be the largest outside the West End, will help bolster the area’s growing reputation as a centre for the creative and cultural industries.
Clear Channel Entertainment, The Baydrive Group, which owns the TopGolf courses, and Venture Xtreme UK, a specialist sports activity company, have already signed agreements to operate at the leisure complex.
CZWG and Holder Mathias have been appointed as the architects to the project.
References: EGi News 31/01/05
