Friday, November 8, 2013

News: All change at Rotherham bus station?

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The redevelopment of the Rotherham Interchange to include a leisure facility is being looked at after investigations revealed that the car park on the site requires £4m worth of repairs.

The bus station in Rotherham town centre also includes a retail development covering 55,000 sq ft, consisting of 18 units and 750 parking spaces. It is owned by commercial property developers, Norseman Holdings, with the interchange and car park leased to South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE), the organisation that takes the lead to develop the region's transport network.

Opened in 1971, the car park has since developed widespread defects. The access ramp was replaced last year with a new bridge section over the River Don.

An update on the project was recently given to the South Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority (SYITA), the locally accountable body responsible for the strategic direction of transport planning and delivery.

The detailed design of the repair scheme and development of the cladding options for the multi-storey car park has been progressed to enable pre-planning application discussions to take place with Rotherham Council. Dependent on the outcome of these discussions, the current estimated cost of the works is between £4m and £4.5m.

Tendering has begun for the work which includes refurbishment and major repair works to the structure to bring the car park up to current DDA and Health and Safety standards and generally improve the customer environment. The works include deck repairs, concrete repairs to structural beams and columns and waterproofing. In addition, the works will include the replacement of vehicle restraint barriers, work to the external cladding; upgrading the internal lighting and improvements to the internal finishes.
A meeting has recently taken place with SYPTE, Rotherham Council and the owners, Norseman Holdings, to discuss potential alternative development options for the site.

Norseman committed to review the options of a leisure facility at the site and report back on options. This will enable SYPTE to make a decision on whether to continue the tender for the major refurbishment.

The redevelopment of the important site has been mooted for a number of years. Back in 2007, a scheme was submitted in outline by Norseman Holdings with a partner developer, Hartshead, and SYPTE for the redevelopment of the entire Interchange. As part of Rotherham Renaissance it was planned to include replacement car parking of 750 spaces, new retail floorspace of 125,000 sq ft and new office floorspace of 85,000 sq ft.

Discussions continued into 2008 as the scheme involved using the adjacent site of the former council building, Crinoline House. The scheme was shelved when TCN UK, the developer with a five year exclusivity agreement on the council sites, secured the Crinoline House site for a new petrol station as part of the £40m Tesco Extra development.

Last August, the council's cabinet confirmed Forge Island as the preferred site for a town centre cinema and theatre development.

SYPTE website

Images: Norseman Holdings / Quadriga

1 comments:

@redpola,  November 8, 2013 at 9:47 AM  

What a splendid opportunity to either sell off another bit of Rotherham or better still, enter another PFI arrangement so we Rotherham taxpayers can pay for it for decades.

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