News: Yorkshire Water well underway with work on multimillion pound projects in Rotherham

Yorkshire Water has begun work on 27 projects to reduce sewer discharges into watercourses - an investment of £73.5m in the Rotherham area.

A £4.75m scheme at Clifton Park is creating a combined sewer overflow (CSO) to reduce storm overflow discharges into the river Don.

Construction partner, M Group has begun work on a new 345m³ underground storage tank in a field beneath Clifton Park. The tank will store 345,000 litres of excess wastewater during periods of heavy rainfall, before returning it back into waterways once it has been treated.

On completion, the upgrade is expected to reduce annual storm overflow discharges from Clifton Park CSO by around 72%, cutting the annual average from 37 to fewer than ten per year.

A further £1.25m project to separate surface water from the wastewater network is planned at nearby Herringthorpe Playing Fields, helping to reduce the amount of rainfall entering and overloading the sewer system.

The project is expected to take around 18 months to complete.

Vikki Overend, project manager at Yorkshire Water, said: “We know that reducing storm discharges and maintaining healthy waterways are important to our local communities which is why we're continuing to invest in projects that reduce storm overflow discharges and improve the resilience of our wastewater network.

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"This investment at Clifton Park will help us capture and store excess flows during heavy rainfall, significantly reducing the use of the storm overflow and supporting our efforts to improve the health of the river Don."

Work got underway in the summer at Lord Street in Clifton on a £2.3m scheme on a new 80m³ storm tank at empty allotments plots, with new pipework and an overhaul of the existing combined sewer overflow chamber.

Contract partners, Ward & Burke, are also underway with work at Scrooby Street combined sewer overflow (CSO) in Greasbrough, where Yorkshire Water is constructing a new 1,550m³ storm attenuation tank.

The £4.3m project here will provide additional capacity within the sewer network during periods of intense rainfall, helping to reduce storm overflow discharges into Greasbrough Dike and ultimately the River Don. The scheme will take up to 14 months to complete.

At Treeton, a £2.6m investment is being made to reduce sewage discharges from the Treeton Mill Lane combined sewer overflow (CSO). A pipe nest was installed to increase capacity within the network with contractors M Group returning to the area to complete work to build a new combined sewer overflow and decommission redundant parts of the network.

Yorkshire Water is delivering its largest ever environmental investment programme, with £8.3bn set to be invested across the region over the next five years to upgrade infrastructure and improve services.

Yorkshire Water website

Images: Tom Austen

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News: Objections heard over licence for proposed new events and sports venue in Rotherham

South Yorkshire Police has withdrawn its objections to an events licence for a sports and recreation facility in Rotherham, with work taking place to overcome potential issues using conditions and management control.

Initially the licence application was seeking permission for an outdoor events space at the site of the Guest & Chrimes pitches on Bassingthorpe Lane near Greasbrough.

The application for a premises licence is from SME Enviromental Holdings LTD, the company behind a number of regeneration projects in Rotherham town centre, including The Empire and The Bunka.

Plans show a large venue space complemented with a pavilion and café, plus 77 to 110 car parking spaces. Also shown are seven padel courts and an area for golfing activities - a netted driving range with 13 bays, a chipping area, and a putting area.

The application would be for between May and September and limits the provision licensable activities to a maximum of 16 occasions between 11am and 12 midnight on any day of the week.

With the site accessed via a narrow road, and events proposed that may attract significant numbers of attendees, objections from South Yorkshire Police, the Rotherham Council's Environmental Health department, and local residents were received and the plans have been updated in response.

Diane Kraus, Principal Licensing Officer at Rotherham Council explained to the council's Licensing Sub-Committee: "The significant change that has been made is that the police has continued negotiations with the applicant, and as a result of that, the applicant formally amended the application form.

"Principally, [the application] now seeks for six occasions between May and September, and at this stage the hours of application remain unchanged."

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The applicant has also offered a host of further management conditions including stewarding, vehicle management, monitoring music levels and encouraging patrons to leave the site quietly and respectfully.

Kirsty Leonard for Environmental Health at Rotherham Council, said: "Whilst Environmental Health welcomes the proposed control measures, we consider that they remain largely aspirational and lack sufficient detail to provide confidence that events will be effectively managed and controlled in practice."

The officer told that meeting that the applicant's intention to hold events like galas and farmer's markets was not reflected in the application.

Opposing the application, Environmental Health go on to say that, if the committee are to approve the licence, then they recommend that entertainment and the sale of alcohol is restricted to 11am to 10pm with a maximum of one of the six events being a major music event (where music is the main focus), attracting up to a maximum of 2,000 attendees. The remaining five events may be minor music events (where music is not the main focus) attracting up to a maximum of 500 attendees.

A further 18 conditions are proposed.

South Yorkshire Police has withdrawn its objections but instead put forward 28 management controls, largely focusing on the production of event management plans for each event.

Many of the concerns relate to the use of Gin House Lane to access the site and a number of local residents have also made representations to raise their concerns.

Local councillors gave their support for local events and activities in the ward but were opposed to the application. Cllr Linda Beresford said: "We feel that it is the wrong place to hold large events and has the potential to impact on public safety, to cause noise nuisance, and because of the number of people that could attend, and the time the events could finish, we think this will have a big impact on the community."

Mark McGrail, the applicant, explained to the Licensing Sub-Committee the history of the site that has been a sports facility for over 120 years and the legal agreements in place regarding access and its continued use for sports and recreation now that it is in his ownership.

McGrail said: "The intentions are to put in a new sports facility, a recreational facility and like all sports and recreational facilities, we'll offer a drinking option. Currently we are allowed to do any events within the parameters, so the argument to not be able to do an event up there is null and void, we can still do events up there. This is about licencing for drinks. So if we want to put a sports facility, any sports, any activity around recreation, we are able to do so. The point is that we are trying to control this, make it a safe environment and more community-led environment.

"A lot of issues regarding the access roads and transport up there. Our aim is to create a new facility to add to our projects in Rotherham town centre. We are a ten minute walk from the town centre, eight minutes from the [proposed mainline] train station. The council are looking at a bridge as part of the Gateway railway station, all that area where Greasbrough Road is is all getting redeveloped and this is a link to that.

"This ain't about raves all night, this ain't about music event sites like Hooton Lodge. This is about us creating a facility and creating a fund to create that facility. I am not about to cause mayhem and put Iron Maiden on in the middle of the night.

"I know that Rotherham Council is eager for me to build the sports facility but this is all part of it. Our planning application has gone in but we've held it back for this meeting.

"The reason why we are trying to do this is that the business model is to revitalise the town centre with leisure and tourism, same as Rother Valley, same as everybody else. This is a facility where people can camp there, glamp there, drink there, enjoy sports there, and use Gin House Lane as a pedestrianised area."

The applicant went on to discuss the issues with the COMAH [Control of Major Accident Hazards] in place at the Victrex site nearby, the lack of council maintenance of the highways, and that the sports facility was operating before any of the nearby housing estate was built.

The wider Bassingthorpe housing development was also discussed with the applicant keen to use his land to create a facility that can service the proposed 2,000 home development on former greenbelt land.

McGrail added: "There will be sports facilities, there will be a restaurant, there will be a cafe on there, a community element on that site, we've got padel courts planned. When that facility is done, we still need to apply for a premises licence regardless. This [current application] pre-empts that facility and for us, it determines which avenue we go down. But there needs to be an understanding that it is part of a bigger picture other than just a field getting a licence. It is part of a larger community - 2,400 houses, community, school, everything else.

"This application has been reduced to a point so we are not essentially having events every day. We can still hold sports and recreational activity events but we want it to be a controlled environment where we can deliver something better for the community.

"I am passionate enough to get it delivered, and strong enough to see it what it needs to be. If it is was about money I should sell the land for housing, but it's not, it's about bringing it back into use."

Having heard the representations, the Licensing Sub-Committee went into a private session to decide on the licence application. A decision is expected to be published in due course.

Images: Google Maps

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News: The £2.45m of transport improvements in Rotherham that hasn't improved traffic flows

A multimillion pound transport scheme in a Rotherham village has failed to improve traffic flow, the local council has admitted.

Where Coach Road meets Main Street and Potter Hill in Greasbrough, a mini roundabout was replaced by a three-way crossroads, with traffic lights and dedicated left and right turn lanes, aiming to relieve congestion at this busy junction.

To improve safety and encourage travel on foot and by bike, paths around the junction were widened to provide cycle routes, and new crossings for pedestrians and cyclists have been installed.

In 2021, £2.45m was secured from the Local Growth Fund via the predecessor to the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), and the work was carried out by Esh Construction, on behalf of Rotherham Council.

Following correspondence from local MP Sarah Champion, Rotherham Council said that a review of the scheme has shown that "the improvements have not had the desired effect of increasing traffic capacity through the junction."

In 2017, Rotherham Council approved an option to demolish Greasbrough Public Hall so that future road improvements could be carried out here. Papers showed at the time that the Council deemed that the strategic importance of improving the infrastructure around the proposed Bassingthorpe Farm development outweighed proposals to save the historic village hall.

Removed from the greenbelt, a masterplan has recently been signed off for a 2,000 home development - a "well-connected 21st century garden community" at Bassingthorpe.

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Andrew Bramidge, Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environment at Rotherham Council, said in the letter that "It is apparent that traffic has redistributed around the local highway network negatively affecting junction operation. In particular, it appears that there has been a significant increase in demand for some movements, including a significant increase on outflow from the junction toward the north, which could explain the apparent underperformance of the scheme. This may be a consequence of a well-documented effect, where improvements to junction capacity can result in increased traffic, where road users change their route or travel behaviours in response to driving being made more attractive.

"Secondly research undertaken by (sic) regionally has identified a local factor with regards the operation of junctions in South Yorkshire. Research has shown that the actual traffic flow crossing stop lines, known as the saturation flow, is generally lower than the values calculated using industry standard methodology (TRRL research report RR67). The research showed that some drivers are, relative to industry standard forecasting, slow to respond to a green signal and the queue starting to move and / or prefer to leave a larger gap to the vehicle in front. This has led to green time effectively being 'wasted' and the junctions not operating as expected with actual saturation flows (simplistically the capacity of the junction) being 18% less than expected values on average."

Further work at the junction has been ruled out and a nearby project for "The Whins" no longer appears on any lists of council capital projects having previously been identified as a project that could be funded by the authority's Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). A potential scheme to support Bassingthorpe had been in development for a new roundabout at the triangular road layout on Cinder Bridge Road. A passing bay at the junction was also discussed back in 2023.

Sarah Champion said that she was disappointed that the response offered no solution. adding: "This simply is not good enough, and it is something that I will keep pushing alongside Greasbrough’s local councillors."

Images: Google Maps

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News: £4m to revamp Rotherham's towns and villages and what it'll be spent on

Details have been revealed on projects that are set to benefit from a new £4m Towns and Villages Improvement Fund that aims to help reinvigorate town and village centres across the Rotherham borough.

The fund, which was supported by Rotherham Council’s Cabinet as part of its 2021/22 capital budget, will be used to brighten up neglected areas in smaller town and village centres, helping to restore confidence and a little civic pride in communities and also support local businesses.

The funding is due to be prioritised and spent in places that have not benefited from recent investments.

An update to Cabinet shows that projects have been put forward by Ward Councillors in consultation with their communities, including improving shopping parades, parking and green space.

Delivering scalable improvement works across local villages and townships, the overall aim of the scheme is "to work with neighbourhoods across the borough, to enhance their lived environment, through a variety of improvement projects, focused on town and village centres."

A framework has been devised for the capital scheme where projects will be allocated funds between April 2021 and March 2024.

Local councillors have been encouraged to act as community champions, engaging with residents, businesses, and stakeholders to create projects that will have a positive impact within their communities.

A number of schemes have been put forward and separated into four categories, dependent on meeting the objectives of the funding, the complexity of the scheme proposed and the potential cost of the project.

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Schemes coming forward first, seen as the least complex, timely and meeting the objectives of the scheme, are:

- Creation of off-road parking next to Brinsworth Lane shops
- Improvement to the area outside Ridgeway Convenience Store at East Herringthorpe
- Green link corridor between Greasbrough Park and Greasbrough Recreation Ground
- Off street parking at Laburnum Parade shops, Maltby, utilising and improving existing green space
- Improvement to area outside of Masefield Road shops, West Melton (pictured)
- Refurbishment of Broadway shopping parade, Swinton

A number of other schemes include land and buildings that are privately owned and require more work. These schemes focus on The Pastures at Todwick, Wellgate on the edge of the town centre, Ravenfield Crossroads, St. Johns Green in Kimberworth Park, the Swinton Bridge area, Maltby High Street, Whiston Village Centre, Thurcroft High Street and Bawtry Road in Wickersley.

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Maltby town centre is undergoing a masterplanning exercise which should highlight projects for this fund.

Much of the recent regeneration investment in the borough has been in the town centre with Council funding joined by money from other pots such as the Government's Future High Street Fund and Town Deal. Swinton town centre has also been lined up for larger scale regeneration.

Proposals for Dinnington and Wath were turned down by the Government as part of its Levelling Up Fund but they are being included in bids to further rounds of the fund.

Images: Google Maps

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News: "The Whins" of change in Greasbrough

Work is underway on a transport scheme that is poised to support the Bassingthorpe development in Rotherham.

But a nearby project for "The Whins" could lose out due to changes in Government funding.

The mini roundabout where Coach Road meets Main Street and Potter Hill is being replaced by a three-way crossroads, with traffic lights and dedicated left and right turn lanes, to relieve congestion at this busy junction.

To improve safety and encourage travel on foot and by bike, paths around the junction will be widened to provide cycle routes, and new crossings for pedestrians and cyclists will be installed.

Rotherham Council’s Assistant Director of Planning, Regeneration and Transport, Simon Moss, said: “The B6089 is a vital route linking the north of our borough and the Dearne Valley with Rotherham town centre and the wider road network. Reducing queues at this key junction in Greasbrough will improve air quality for local residents and improve journey times for travellers across the borough.”

In 2017, Rotherham Council approved an option to demolish Greasbrough Public Hall so that future road improvements could be carried out here. Papers showed at the time that the Council deemed that the strategic importance of improving the infrastructure around the proposed Bassingthorpe Farm development outweighed proposals to save the historic village hall.

Removed from the greenbelt, landowners have been looking at ways to bring forward 2,400 dwellings and 11 hectares for employment use.

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The new junction’s boundaries will extend onto the land where Greasbrough Town Hall used to stand, and this area will be landscaped and given new planting to provide a pleasant public space, as part of the scheme.

£2.45m has been secured from the SCR's Local Growth Fund and the work will be carried out by Esh Construction, on behalf of Rotherham Council. It will take place in two main phases:

- Phase 1 will construct the boundaries of the new junction, create surface water drainage systems and install new cycle and foot paths; this will take place between April and July 2021.
- Phase 2 will see construction of the new junction carriageways and installation of traffic lights and crossings; this will take place between November 2021 and spring 2022.

Between these two phases, utilities providers will move power and telecoms services.

To enable the work to take place, temporary traffic signals will be used; whenever possible use of these will be restricted to off-peak times and weekends.

It will also be necessary to close Coach Road westbound (towards Wingfield and Kimberworth) from 6 April 2021 and signed diversions will be in place.

Esh Construction’s Divisional Director, Steve Conn, said: “We are pleased to be appointed as the contractor for this project for Rotherham Council and will work with them to ensure any disruption is kept to a minimum for residents and road users. We ask for people to be patient and take care when travelling through the works until these improvements are completed.”

Esh Construction said that it is committed to engaging the local workforce and procuring from local suppliers to maximise the social and economic value of this scheme for Rotherham borough.

It is not clear what will happen to a further proposed scheme at the nearby area known as "The Whins."

The multimillion project is for a new roundabout at the triangular road layout on Cinder Bridge Road.

Discussed back in 2018 and also designed to support the Bassingthorpe area, the scheme was put forward for the Government's Pinch Point fund and was also dicussed for inclusion in the Sheffield City Region's (SCR's) slice of a Getting Building Fund.

The Pinch Point fund has now been superceded by the new Levelling Up Fund so areas are being encouraged to prioritise submitting high quality proposals that have been developed for the Pinch Point programme for the first round of the Levelling Up Fund.

Cllr. Chris Read, Labour Leader of Rotherham Council, said: "It is absolutely imperative that the government now makes clear the terms and conditions for the so-called Levelling Up Fund. How will they assess the bids? Will other schemes have to be scrapped first? It seems that the government is big on making these announcements, but their inability to deliver the goods is deeply concerning."



Images: RMBC / Google Maps

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News: Further funding for Rotherham transport scheme

A transport scheme poised to support the Bassingthorpe development in Rotherham is set to secure its second chunk of funding.

Earlier this month Rothbiz reported that £2.5m for improvements at Greasbrough had been set aside by the Sheffield City Region (SCR) as it divvied up the Government's £73m award that is aimed at "Getting SCR Building."

Now, a further £2.45m is set to be granted via the combined authority.

The initial funding was for improvements planned for the area known as "The Whins" and the already busy B6089 route at Greasbrough. The work would address the existing and future congestion issue by providing sufficient space for traffic to wait to turn right, without impinging on the main flow of traffic northbound.

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The £2.45m from the SCR's Local Growth Fund would be used at Potter Hill, Main St and Coach Road for the conversion of the mini roundabout, into a signalised crossroads.

It was here in 2017 that Rotherham Council approved the option to demolish Greasbrough Public Hall so that future road improvements could be carried out. Papers showed at the time that the Council deemed that the strategic importance of improving the infrastructure around the proposed Bassingthorpe Farm development outweighed proposals to save the historic village hall.

Removed from the greenbelt, landowners looking have been looking at ways to bring forward 2,400 dwellings and 11 hectares for employment use.

An original £8.45m scheme has been scaled back.

SCR papers, state: "The improvement takes the form of the conversion of a mini roundabout, into a signalised crossroads with associated highway amendments and signalised pedestrian crossings, to improve junction capacity on all approaches whilst improving accessibility for pedestrians. The scheme includes a series of dedicated left and right turn lanes where appropriate to improve junction capacity, and control conflicting movements which currently cause considerable delay on the B.6089 at all times of the day."

The scheme appears to provide substantial benefits to vehicle drivers in the area, by reducing queueing, improving journey time reliability and providing additional capacity for key motorised movements.

Images: RMBC

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News: Historic hall to make way for Bassingthorpe road improvements

The strategic importance of improving the infrastructure around the proposed Bassingthorpe Farm development is deemed by Rotherham Council to outweigh proposals to save a historic village hall.

The controversial development site is heading to the market with the landowners looking for commercial partners to help bring forward 2,400 dwellings and 11 hectares for employment use. As part of the Local Plan core strategy that was adopted by the Council in 2014, the 215 hectare area close to Rotherham town centre has been removed from the Green Belt and designated as a Strategic Allocation and the main location for new housing, employment and retail growth.

One of the issues to overcome is the viability of the whole development. Previous work has shown estimated delivery costs of over £350m with the infrastructure needed to bring forward houses, associated retail and employment uses estimated at over £50m.

This week, councillors and commissioners approved the option to demolish Greasbrough Public Hall with the cleared site set to be retained in Council ownership for the delivery of a highway improvement scheme.

The hall, which dates from 1925, was declared surplus to requirements by the Council in 2014. It was formally closed as a Community Centre and the building has remained vacant ever since.

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In 2016 the Council invited interest from all parties for either a freehold purchase, taking a commercial lease or any group wishing to take a Community Asset Transfer Lease under the Council's adopted policy.

One interested party was Greasbrough Public Hall Community Trust (GPHCT), a local community group formed for the purpose of trying to save the hall and bring it back into meaningful community use. The property has suffered from vandalism and theft since it was closed.

However, the process was halted when the Council's own Transportation and Highways Team highlighted that the site was required to facilitate a highway improvement scheme at the junction that fronts the hall. The junction at present is a miniroundabout and is described as a severe congestion hot spot at peak traffic flow times. The junction was also recommended for improvement as part of the Bassingthorpe Farm masterplan.

Damien Wilson, strategic director of regeneration and environment at Rotherham Council, explained: "In terms of strategic requirements, the need to improve and enhance the access arrangements at that junction overides the need for the community hall at this stage."

A Council report said that it was "unknown during the initial marketing of the hall of the scale of the intervention that was required from the Council to fully alleviate the existing congestion at the junction, taking into account the additional traffic flow that would come from the new residential development at Bassingthorpe Farm."

Local ward councillors and members of the trust made representations before the decision to demolish the hall was made. The demolition work is expected to cost £75,000 and the stone façade of the building is set to be salvaged.

There is the prospect of using levies as a result of the Bassingthorpe development towards a replacement community facility, but it was stressed that this would be based on the viability of the scheme.

Images: Greasbrough Public Hall Community Trust

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