A £100m plan for the Galpharm Stadium will go ahead – but a year later than planned.
The ambitious scheme will include building an outdoor ski slope, two nightclubs, a casino and bingo hall, a music venue, a pool hall, a 10-pin bowling alley and an outdoor ski slope.
Stadium managing director Ralph Rimmer said yesterday that the plan would go ahead despite the recession.
He said: “Certainly the funding has slowed up but we’re still confident about the scheme going ahead and we’re very confident it would create 900 full-time jobs.
“We planned to start at the end of this year but we hope now to get started at the end of next year.”
The stadium plan also includes 144 flats, 21 restaurants, cafés and bars, a 150-bedroom hotel, a convenience store and sports shop, an estate and travel agency, office space and a multi-storey car park with 1,754 spaces.
The ski slope would be built against the slope of Kilner Bank and the multi-storey car park would be built on the site of the current Town Avenue car park across the river from the stadium.
The other new buildings would mainly occupy land to the south of the stadium between the Pink Link Stand and the river.
Mr Rimmer said the development would take 40 months, with the first attractions opening within a year of work starting.
He added: “The banks are keen to get involved, they have not run a million miles from us. The reaction of investors has also been heart-warming.”
But a major development nearby is on hold.
Developer GMI won planning permission in 2007 for a hotel, shops, offices and restaurants on the former Robinson’s dyeworks on Leeds Road.
Kirklees Council leader Clr Mehboob Khan said: “The plan has stalled because of the lack of private equity interest.”
However, the planned redevelopment of the disused gasworks off Leeds Road is still on.
A two-storey office block and three-storey block of flats are expected to create 340 jobs.
Clr Khan said yesterday: “The proposal is with our planning department for determination.”
The council leader added: “It’s disappointing that some of these regeneration schemes have been delayed but the council’s role at the moment is to keep developers interested and capitalise on any future upturn in the economy.
“We have to carry on promoting Huddersfield as a town with a strong local economy.”
