Features

Lakeside leisure development gets green light in Rotherham

An ambitious challenge to turn a disused brownfield site into an exciting business, residential and leisure hub worth £100 million and forecast to create 1,500 jobs in Rotherham has been given the green light.

Detailed masterplan of the site in the Rotherham’s Manvers regeneration area

Lawyers from the Sheffield office of DLA Piper helped Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in the disposal of more than 285 acres of land to developers Express Park Developments.

Planners have granted detailed planning permission for a 850,000 sq ft development including a nine hole pay-and-play lakeside golf course and 30 bay golf driving range with associated business hotel, boat club house and leisure development.

The leisure park will include an extreme sports venue, bingo, a health club and family restaurants together with a petrol filling station, neighbourhood retail, private retirement village, courtyard office scheme and 387 lakeside homes and apartments. The project is due to be completed in 2010.

The lakeside site as viewed from the air

The scheme is the latest in a series of deals carried out by DLA Piper UK LLP on behalf of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, who are determined to put Rotherham on the map as a forward thinking and economically vibrant development area.

David Shore, Real Estate Solicitor at DLA Piper, said: 'A team of legal experts at DLA Piper worked on different aspects of the scheme from the contractual aspects of leasing the 200 acre leisure site to selling the land for the associated homes and business park. It is exciting to be involved in a scheme which will have such a huge impact on regeneration in the area'

The council’s Cabinet Member for regeneration and economic development, Cllr Gerald Smith, said: 'Express Park’s Waterfront project is one of the truly major final pieces in the massive regeneration of the Manvers area. It will literally change people’s lives for the better, creating a new community there as well as opportunities for jobs, leisure and business. The planning application has been a huge challenge, and our planners, and DLA Piper have played a key role in seeing it through successfully.'

18 December 2006

For further information:
Alex Mills, HR Media Ltd, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX. Tel: +44 (0)114 296 5567 or email alexm@hrmedia.org.uk

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