Plans to rebuild the derelict Sheffield Ski Village with a state of the art outdoor sports centre complete with year-round dry ski slopes have taken a major step forward with the news that Sheffield City council have signed off a £4.8 million loan to the site’s preferred developers.

The funding is however just for the first phase of the new development which will be used for site remediation, utilities provision and the construction of a new access road ahead of the £22.5m centre’s construction.

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The original Ski Village, which opened in 1988, had been one of Europe’s leading and largest year-round winter sports centres and was where many of the current crop of world class freestyle British talent first learned their skills before it was destroyed by an arson attack in 2012.

There have since been more than 50 unsolved arson attacks to the site and there are also legal moves to have a long-established group of ‘new age travellers’ removed from the area.

The redevelopment of the centre is being led by Extreme Sports and is set to include the new artificial ski and snowboarding slopes, the UK’s first Skyline Luge track, indoor skydiving, surfing,  biking tracks, a new zip wire and a lake for water sports.

Justifying the investment, council officials said that they expected the facility, once re-opened, to bring in nearly £25 million to the local economy, representing a return of ‘£5 for every £1 investment’.