Sheffield ski village

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 Skodas 29 Jan 2021

Anyone got any news on whether the new Sheffield ski village is still going ahead? Building work was meant to begin at the back end of 2020/2021 apparently. 

 mike123 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Skodas: I was only thinking about this earlier in the week , what happened to the old ski village ? I turned up one afternoon some years ago to Find it all shut up and the whole site looking very sorry for itself . One of the reasons  I make so many typos when typing on my phone is that my left hand thumb bends at a weird angle , due to almost being yanked out by the matting at Sheffield after a crash  . When I turned up at the halamshire hospital the I knew two of the junior doctors on duty through climbing . They both thought it hilarious . Happy days 

OP Skodas 29 Jan 2021
In reply to mike123:

Funnily enough I had exactly the same thumb injury at the old Sheffield ski village! I blame my subsequent lack of climbing progression on that injury (nothing to do with crap technique, heightened sense of fear and lack of any endurance!)

The old ski slope closed due to a combination of falling number of users, lack of investment, competition from new snowdomes and arson. Not sure in what order. Sheffield was the absolute centre of artificial slope skiing in the 80's when I was growing up, real shame there is no facility at the moment in this area of the country.

 mike123 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Skodas: I would have thought that the old site would make an ideal venue for a snow dome type affair  , surely it would be cheaper to use a natural Hill rather than build one of those towers like the one you drive by on the way past Manchester ? I bet there would be eu grants for that kind of thing .........

 Ian W 29 Jan 2021
In reply to mike123:

You do have to take into account the running cost - there still needs to be at least a gap between the ground and whatever the snow sits on, as the whole thing needs to be kept pretty cold and the easiest way of doing that is to pump chilled glycol through tubes just below the surface on which the snow lies. You couldnt do that on the ground itself as you would lose too much energy cooling down the ground, but I do see the logic in using the natural contours to build a big slopey shed a few feet above, rather than a mahoosive shed on flat ground into which you have to put a sloping floor.........

 galpinos 29 Jan 2021
In reply to mike123:

> I was only thinking about this earlier in the week , what happened to the old ski village ?

Closed down then there was a fire. Looks very sorry for itself now.

 Toerag 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Skodas:

> Funnily enough I had exactly the same thumb injury at the old Sheffield ski village!

My Mum broke her thumb or finger (can't remember which) on the dry slope in Huddersfield(?) too.  I wonder how many digit injuries those sort of slopes caused!

 mike123 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Toerag:

Wasn’t the mat called demdex and the injury demdex  thumb ?

 mike123 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Ian W:

Idle curiosity , I wonder how much one of those places cost to build ?

 mike123 29 Jan 2021
In reply to mike123: 

https://www.inthesnow.com/new-sheffield-ski-slope-slips-to-at-least-2020/

I was also going to say that one could put mountain biking and skiing on the same site with one lift . Seems like they thought of that to . 

 tjdodd 29 Jan 2021
In reply to mike123:

This is a well shot video of skiing and snowboarding the derelict site

youtube.com/watch?v=n-1FFrZUqZg&

In reply to Skodas:

There are all sorts of stories about why it closed but most of them end up in arson. I think it had numerous arson attempts. Whether that was a vendetta or just the fact that it was built in the shittiest bit of Sheffield, I don't know. Curiously, in recent years, the area below (which includes the Foundry) has become one of the trendiest areas for development so maybe this second time might be more successful. It would be great to see it back.

Alan

In reply to mike123:

> I would have thought that the old site would make an ideal venue for a snow dome type affair  I bet there would be eu grants for that kind of thing .........

Do you...😉

Last thing I saw of the Sheffield ski village was on a MTB film...shot by that famous mtber from Sheffield...Danny Hart.

 Denning76 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Skodas:

Funnily enough I was thinking that it hadn't been on fire for a while.

Red sky in morning, sailor takes warning. Red sky at night, ski village alight.

 summo 29 Jan 2021
 Ian W 29 Jan 2021
In reply to mike123:

> Idle curiosity , I wonder how much one of those places cost to build ?

Good question; it depends on what you are trying to achieve. For a bloody big fridge with a slopey floor and a couple of snow cannon I suspect a couple of million. There is one which has been in the planning stage for years in middlesbrough is going to be a "state of the art winter sports experience" with ski slope, beginners area, ice ring, ice climbing wall, retail, restaurants etc and is supposed to be costing £30million............

Value for money? Financially successful? I see another Ratho.........

 Ian W 29 Jan 2021
In reply to summo:

> Or just insulate the ground and cool the air, 

I like the look of that one!!

 summo 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Ian W:

> I like the look of that one!!

The track follows the ground, up and down, left and right, rather than just being a circular donut. You don't get engrained habits of always turning in a given direction. Has a small indoor shooting range too, for biathlon training. 

 summo 29 Jan 2021
In reply to Ian W:

Torsby cost about £5m, for 1.3km, 8m wide and 4m high. The roof for a ski slope would likely cost more because of the span involved. 

 Darron 29 Jan 2021
In reply to tjdodd:

Dystopian skiing. There’ll all be at it after the “button is pressed”.

 mark burley 30 Jan 2021
In reply to :

I bet there would be eu grants for that kind of thing .........

Good luck with an eu grant, I think that ship has sailed. We can always trust Boris to level us up to let us go downhill fast instead. 

2
 hang_about 30 Jan 2021
In reply to mark burley:

There was a plan to develop a snowdome. If I recall the developer was most miffed that the council wouldn't back it (Snowdome + cable car from town centre). Made a lot of noise about it. But I think the issue was they were putting in £1-2 million and expected the council to put in 50-100x as much - with the developers owning it at the end. Rather a (half)-pipe dream. would be good to see it back again in some form.

 Tom Briggs 30 Jan 2021
In reply to Skodas:

https://sheffield.citizenspace.com/place-planning/parkwood-springs/supporti...
 

Parkwood Springs has so much potential. Some of it is like a little bit of the Peak District 2km from the city centre. It’s a bit unfair to call it the “shittiest bit of Sheffield”. I run up there all the time (well, I did until 10 months ago) and am very fond of it. Yes it is surrounded by some very deprived areas but Kelham Island is creeping towards its base and the views across the city are great.

 deacondeacon 30 Jan 2021
In reply to Tom Briggs:

Agreed. It's a great little part of the world. Good mountain biking and surprisingly nice countryside. Kelham Island is definitely 'up and coming' (although I hate that saying), and it's not a place that's intimidating to walk through at night anymore. It also has a great skatepark, not to mention the foundry. It would be great to get the ski slope back open I bet the apres ski would be popular these days too. 

 dunc56 30 Jan 2021
In reply to mike123:

It looks like it is dendix. I have a damaged finger from the bloody stuff as well. 


I also heard they had been sued for not wetting the matting enough which causes too much friction leading to more crashes.

 deepsoup 31 Jan 2021
In reply to dunc56:

> It looks like it is dendix. I have a damaged finger from the bloody stuff as well.

The drag lift itself and the original slope turning left off the top of the lift was Dendix (aka 'the diamonds of death').  The nursery slope and the newer slope on the other side of the drag lift with the halfpipe, kickers and wotnot, was Snowflex.  It's a continuous carpet a bit like Astroturf, slightly softer and much less horrible to fall on.

OP Skodas 31 Jan 2021
In reply to Tom Briggs:

Thanks for the link Tom, really interesting reading. It has made me want to go over and check out Parkwood Springs as I don't know it well at all, despite living in Sheffield for the last 15 years. 

 katryb 01 Feb 2021

There was a really good thread on Snowheads about SSV a while ago - lots of info on what happened, future plans (and why they weren’t viable).

I learnt to ski and snowboard at SSV and spent many a happy Friday night zooming down the main slope or attempting to Chuck myself off the jump.

When I first started going it was all dendex but then they redeveloped the bottom half of the blue run (the Snake) into the snow flex half pipe and jump.

When it rained a big puddle used to form at the bottom of the red Barron and if you were a 12 year old idiot you could do a hard stop and spray the loft queue with puddle water 😬 😂 

Learning to snowboard at SSV has given me a lifelong advantage on drag-lifts-of-death and ice 😂 Falling and getting hooked on the drag lift where the attendant couldn’t see and be dragged all the way up with your back scraping on the dendex.. rite of passage!

First time I went on snow I couldn’t believe it - so slippy, so easy to turn! 

The decline was very sad. Used to be heaving on Friday nights with crazy lift queues and great atmosphere in the bar.

it’s a bit chicken and egg, they stopped maintaining it, didn’t run the sprinklers enough, stopped running the drag lift to the top just stopping it half way... who wants to pay the prices for half the run on dry matting?! Visitor numbers declined, made more cost savings. Quality reduced further, matting had dangerous bits of metal sticking up, less people went etc  

Been there a few times in actual Sheffield snow, now they were cool experiences.  

I would love it if the area could be redeveloped. I think a big dry ski slope complex with multiple runs following the hill side is much better than a short-run straight boring snow dome. Especially if they can combine with lift served MTB etc  

One thing it didn’t really have public transport access, and that hill was a beast to walk up carrying skis/snowboard and boots.

 katryb 01 Feb 2021

There’s also a lot to be said for SSV widening participation - Friday night was schools night and I had a 2h lesson every Friday night for 5 years for something like £3.80. School didn’t sub, this, SSV had this pricing agreement. 

 hang_about 01 Feb 2021
In reply to katryb:

One of the guys at work was an instructor.  Used to arrange £5 sessions for us. Was good at first, but went back a few years later and all the comments about dry matting and metal sticking out ring true. Pity.

 Philb1950 02 Feb 2021
In reply to Tom Briggs:

I remember going to the ski village with a Chamonix guide. As we got off at the top he turned and said”Ahhh ze ambience!”

 afx22 02 Feb 2021
In reply to Skodas:

I used to love Friday nights up there.  Trying to straight line the main slope, then £1 vodka shots in the bar afterwards.

 Webster 02 Feb 2021
In reply to Skodas:

I too broke my thumb there, on the rollers at the bottom of the old moguls on the black run! its clearly a common occurance!

i spent many a birthday there growing up, with many happy memories. i was dissapointed to learn its fate years later.

there was plans to incorporate a snowdome into the sight before the first arson, i guess any upgrades got scrapped and they just went into survival/cost cutting after that and never got back on their feet.

it would be great news if somebody has finnally got the go ahead to redevelop the place.

 Takein 02 Feb 2021
In reply to Skodas:

There was an interesting story around a community of new age travellers that had been living on the site since it's closure. They were finally evicted in 2019. BBC article below also has some links and deets of the proposed £22m redevelopment...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-47457695

And an old Big Issue article on the plight of the travellers...

https://www.bigissuenorth.com/features/2019/04/out-of-site/


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