News: Further free parking for Forge Island as Rotherham Council faces difficulties with flagship site
A council briefing has laid bare the difficulties that the authority is facing with its Forge Island regeneration scheme.
Forge Island is Rotherham town centre's new landmark leisure destination delivered by the council in partnership with Muse. The £47m development includes an 8-screen boutique cinema operated by The Arc Cinema and a 69-roomed Travelodge Hotel and food outlets.
Since the first openings in 2024, footfall across Rotherham town centre was 10% higher than the previous year but a report regarding the parking charges at the transformed site of the former Tesco supermarket shows that Rotherham Council is having difficulty attracting businesses and facing complaints from the current tenants.
In February 2025, Rothbiz reported on a free concessionary parking offer for users of the businesses on Forge Island but the tariff for the 340 space car park has never been implemented due to "operational issues."
In October, Parking Services staff were drafted in to ensure the site is used appropriately after the council received a number of complaints about parking availability at Forge Island.
Now a decision has been made regarding a hybrid, ticketless system that will introduce new concessionary free parking and new parking charges.
The hotel and cinema have parking concessions written into their leases, the other businesses do not. A 3.5 hours concession for customers of the cinema is already in place, as is free parking for hotel guests between 16:00 and 10:00. The report states that: "[Restaurant unit tenant] Vetro Lounge are now requesting a concession for their customers on a regular basis and are worried the introduction of parking charges will impact their trading."
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The authority has had to weigh up issues such as potential higher parking fees that could deter visitors and impact the trading of the businesses, with the problem of "heavy usage by non-genuine customers," given the proximity to Riverside House, the police station and the AESSEAL New York Stadium.
The report states: "The purpose of the car park, whilst it is there to support wider parking within the town centre, its "main" purpose is to support the footfall and the generation of trade / customers for the tenants located on Forge Island."
Continuing the current free parking situation has been ruled out due to "genuine customers complaining to the cinema and hotel that they were unable to find a parking space, which jeopardised rental income from these businesses."
Also ruled out was an option to keep concessions for cinema and hotel users, but not offer any to users of other businesses. Instead, charges would be brought in to try to maintain sufficient parking capacity for genuine customers of Forge Island.
However, the report adds: "Adjacent destinations such as Parkgate and Meadowhall offers free parking to its visitors / customers and therefore parking charges at Forge Island are likely to influence customer choice.
"Giving concessions to all customers of Forge Island will impact the income received from the car park and the business plan for the site, but charging all customers to use the site will potentially put customers off visiting the site and using the food outlets.
"Given the difficulty we are having in attracting businesses to site, letting the units and the current volume of complaints from the tenants in respect of the car park and management of the car park it is recommended that the other outlets are given a concession equal to that of the cinema."
The chosen option introduces concessions for all other businesses as part of the Forge Island development alongside the current free parking for cinema and hotel users.
This is likely to involve using the same concession of 3.5 hours, which the council says "would allow visitors to visit both the cinema and other outlets without the need to pay for parking. If they exceeded the allotted concession they would need to pay the balance of the parking charge, which would be their choice."
Fees would also be introduced for people wishing to park in Forge Island but not use any Forge Island businesses. Up to 2 hours would cost £2.50, up to 4 hours would be £5, and up to 24 hours would be £8.
There is no mention in the report of Forge Island utilising the up to 1 hour free parking offer brought in by the council last year, although a 30 minute drop off period has been in operation. Free parking is already offered in the town centre at all Council Off-Street car parks on Saturdays and Sundays, but again, that is not mentioned in the Forge Island report.
The Council is justifying the fees as it expects that the higher rates would send "significant numbers" of employees of the Council back to New York Stadium car park as they are willing to pay the day rate of £5 there. Charging on weekends has been suggested to deter use of the car park by people attending football matches at the stadium.
To facilitate the new system, ANPR cameras would be used and tablets will be installed within the businesses in order for users to enter their car registration number and validate their parking. Validated free parking will be offered to vehicles displaying a valid blue badge.
Forge Island website
Images: Muse
Forge Island is Rotherham town centre's new landmark leisure destination delivered by the council in partnership with Muse. The £47m development includes an 8-screen boutique cinema operated by The Arc Cinema and a 69-roomed Travelodge Hotel and food outlets.
Since the first openings in 2024, footfall across Rotherham town centre was 10% higher than the previous year but a report regarding the parking charges at the transformed site of the former Tesco supermarket shows that Rotherham Council is having difficulty attracting businesses and facing complaints from the current tenants.
In February 2025, Rothbiz reported on a free concessionary parking offer for users of the businesses on Forge Island but the tariff for the 340 space car park has never been implemented due to "operational issues."
In October, Parking Services staff were drafted in to ensure the site is used appropriately after the council received a number of complaints about parking availability at Forge Island.
Now a decision has been made regarding a hybrid, ticketless system that will introduce new concessionary free parking and new parking charges.
The hotel and cinema have parking concessions written into their leases, the other businesses do not. A 3.5 hours concession for customers of the cinema is already in place, as is free parking for hotel guests between 16:00 and 10:00. The report states that: "[Restaurant unit tenant] Vetro Lounge are now requesting a concession for their customers on a regular basis and are worried the introduction of parking charges will impact their trading."
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The authority has had to weigh up issues such as potential higher parking fees that could deter visitors and impact the trading of the businesses, with the problem of "heavy usage by non-genuine customers," given the proximity to Riverside House, the police station and the AESSEAL New York Stadium.
The report states: "The purpose of the car park, whilst it is there to support wider parking within the town centre, its "main" purpose is to support the footfall and the generation of trade / customers for the tenants located on Forge Island."
Continuing the current free parking situation has been ruled out due to "genuine customers complaining to the cinema and hotel that they were unable to find a parking space, which jeopardised rental income from these businesses."
Also ruled out was an option to keep concessions for cinema and hotel users, but not offer any to users of other businesses. Instead, charges would be brought in to try to maintain sufficient parking capacity for genuine customers of Forge Island.
However, the report adds: "Adjacent destinations such as Parkgate and Meadowhall offers free parking to its visitors / customers and therefore parking charges at Forge Island are likely to influence customer choice.
"Giving concessions to all customers of Forge Island will impact the income received from the car park and the business plan for the site, but charging all customers to use the site will potentially put customers off visiting the site and using the food outlets.
"Given the difficulty we are having in attracting businesses to site, letting the units and the current volume of complaints from the tenants in respect of the car park and management of the car park it is recommended that the other outlets are given a concession equal to that of the cinema."
This is likely to involve using the same concession of 3.5 hours, which the council says "would allow visitors to visit both the cinema and other outlets without the need to pay for parking. If they exceeded the allotted concession they would need to pay the balance of the parking charge, which would be their choice."
Fees would also be introduced for people wishing to park in Forge Island but not use any Forge Island businesses. Up to 2 hours would cost £2.50, up to 4 hours would be £5, and up to 24 hours would be £8.
There is no mention in the report of Forge Island utilising the up to 1 hour free parking offer brought in by the council last year, although a 30 minute drop off period has been in operation. Free parking is already offered in the town centre at all Council Off-Street car parks on Saturdays and Sundays, but again, that is not mentioned in the Forge Island report.
The Council is justifying the fees as it expects that the higher rates would send "significant numbers" of employees of the Council back to New York Stadium car park as they are willing to pay the day rate of £5 there. Charging on weekends has been suggested to deter use of the car park by people attending football matches at the stadium.
To facilitate the new system, ANPR cameras would be used and tablets will be installed within the businesses in order for users to enter their car registration number and validate their parking. Validated free parking will be offered to vehicles displaying a valid blue badge.
Forge Island website
Images: Muse
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