Forge Island
Work is underway to revitalise the town centre, with a large focus on leisure and entertainment along with new housing developments and improved open spaces.
We want the town centre to be a place that people will visit to socialise, live and work; where people bring their families, with a vibrant, diverse, and thriving community.
A new leisure destination within the heart of Rotherham, Forge Island is a key development in the Town Centre Masterplan, occupying a prominent river and canal side site on the edge of the Town Centre.
Forge Island maximises its waterside location and the development will bring a cinema, hotel, food and drinks outlets, and a car park, with the new leisure facilities set within an attractive public space.
Plans for the site were approved in June 2020 and the cinema partner – The Arc Cinema – was announced in early 2021. Along with the cinema, plans are in place for a modern hotel and food and drink outlets. The leisure facilities will be set within an attractive public square with a new pedestrian bridge connecting the scheme to the wider town centre, creating an exciting mixed-use destination.
Work is continuing to progress on the Forge Island flood defence and enabling scheme, ahead of developers starting work in 2022. The innovative flood defence scheme will allow parts of the car park to flood and recede quickly.
A high-quality landscaped setting has been created adjacent to the canal connected to the main Forge Island development. The next phase of the flood alleviation scheme will see the construction of a canal barrier to complete the flood mitigation works in that vicinity. This is due to start in late summer 2021 with works delivered through the winter.
Work will start shortly to demolish the buildings in Riverside Precinct as part of enabling works for the wider Forge Island development. This will open up the space and transform the landscape.
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