Friday, September 25, 2015

News: Demolition plan for Rotherham nightclub

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The party definitely looks set to be over at a prominent Rotherham nightclub after plans were submitted to enable its demolition.

The Liquid & Envy nightclub on the edge of Rotherham town centre closed in 2012 following a decline in trade. The previous operators, Luminar Leisure, went into administration in October 2011 after talks broke down with its banks on the restructuring of the group's debt arrangement. A subsequent £45m deal to save the operation included the purchase of the Main Street venue but it closed in the December of 2012.

The 22,000 sq ft, 2,000 capacity nightclub was put up for sale by Luminar before its administration. The 1.965 acre site also includes 150 car-park spaces and was advertised as an investment and a development opportunity.

Now the demolition division of Rotherham recycling experts, Ron Hull, has submitted a planning application for prior notification of proposed demolition. Demolition of a building is generally not classed as "development" and planning permission is not usually needed. However, the demolition of some large buildings does need approval from the local planning authority beforehand.

The plans, drawn up with Davenport Consultancy, state that planning permission will be sought for use of the cleared site as a temporary car park. This interim use is expected to ensure that the site is cleared and safe and "allows the owners to seek redevelopment opportunities for the site."

The plans add: "The [unnamed] owner acquired the site in order to redevelop it. The current building not only hinders that development but is also dangerous in so far that vandalism has resulted in a number of fires within the building representing a danger not only to the perpetrators but to the wider public."

In the short term the site is set to be levelled and turned into a temporary car park.

The council's development plan for the area indicates that a number of uses are acceptable in principle. This includes: retail; restaurants and cafés; offices and light industry; hotels; non-residential institutions such as health centres, schools, art galleries and places of worship; and "assembly and leisure" which covers cinemas, concert venues and skating rinks.

Similarly, in the emerging Local Plan, the large area of land at New York, which includes Riverside House, New York Stadium, the former Guest & Chrimes foundry and the nightclub site, is being put forward for a mix of uses with the area "considered to be suitable for B1 office and hotel uses given its gateway location and proximity to Rotherham town centre and public transport interchanges. It is also considered suitable for assembly and leisure uses given its location, existing uses and proximity to Rotherham town centre."

The plans add: "In parallel with the demolition the owner intends to seek planning permission to use the site as a temporary car park, whilst seeking longer term redevelopment opportunities in line with uses detailed above or others that may also be included in a mixed use area and are compatible with the public interest."

Ron Hull Group website

Images: Gerald Eve

1 comments:

Unknown September 25, 2015 at 1:09 PM  

Last year there was rumours that it could become a mosque.
Is this the quiet backdoor way of it becoming this as everything seems to be last minute with details of planned buildings and demolishing

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