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Parkwood Springs, a country park on the edge of Sheffield city centre, is home to a well-used free mountain bike trail. Part of the park has stood derelict since Sheffield Ski Village closed in 2012, and a New Zealand company called Skyline Enterprises now wants to redevelop that site into an adventure leisure destination with downhill karting and a chairlift. A public consultation on the plans closes on Sunday 27th September 2026.
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Skyline says existing paths and bike tracks would be preserved throughout. Friends of Parkwood Springs, a local community group, has asked for specifics on what that means in practice, and several practical details remain unanswered.
Background
Sheffield Ski Village operated on the site from 1988 to 2012, closing after a major fire, and has stood derelict since. Sheffield City Council owns the land and has agreed a strategic framework with Skyline Enterprises, a New Zealand based adventure tourism operator that also has a leisure destination due to open in Swansea, Wales, in 2028. The council has separately secured £19.4 million from the government's Levelling Up Fund, which covers a new access road, new mountain bike trails and paths, and wider improvements to Parkwood Springs, and is running its own consultation on a proposed new road link between Oakham Drive and Vale Road.
What's proposed
The proposed development boundary covers 15.55 hectares (38.42 acres), around a tenth of the wider 150-hectare Parkwood Springs. According to Skyline's own consultation material, the first phase would include a gravity-fed downhill karting track (Skyline Luge), a chairlift, an indoor attraction, a café with a terrace overlooking the city, a free outdoor plaza and family playground, and a car park. Later phases would add a zipline and a surf wave experience, with a longer-term ambition to reintroduce dry ski slopes on the hillside.
Skyline's own projections, published as part of the consultation, put potential visitor spend at £132.7 million over 15 years and construction and operational input at a further £53.4 million, with around 80 permanent jobs. These figures are the developer's own estimates and have not been independently verified.
The trail question
Skyline's consultation material, and the regional press coverage that followed, state that existing walking and mountain bike trails would be retained or carefully relocated where necessary, with public access maintained throughout the site. Neither Skyline nor Sheffield City Council has published a statement confirming how much, if any, of the existing trail network falls inside the proposed development boundary itself (which looks like they do), and the site plans published for the consultation do not include a trail-specific overlay that would show this.
Friends of Parkwood Springs, a local community and conservation group, listed preserving the current MTB tracks among its formal position statement on the project in May 2025.
In written comments submitted on 4 September 2026, after a preliminary presentation of the proposals, the group asked Skyline what effect the development would have on the trails during construction and in the longer term, whether additional trail mileage might be added inside the development boundary, and whether mountain bikers might be able to use the chairlift to get back up the hill. Skyline's response to these specific questions has not been published.
At a Parkwood Area Board meeting on 8 September 2026, the group separately raised wider concerns about restricted access and impact on the natural environment within the boundary. According to Friends of Parkwood Springs' published account of that meeting, Skyline said all paths and bike tracks would be preserved, that fencing would be kept to a minimum, and that it was aiming for a seamless connection between its site and the rest of Parkwood Springs.
At the time of writing, iBikeRide could not find a dedicated public statement from Ride Sheffield, the volunteer group that maintains the Parkwood Springs trails.
Since this article was first published, iBikeRide has spoken to some members of the local mountain biking community about the plans. Their concerns included:
- A belief, based on comparing published GPS trail-heatmap data with the boundary shown in the consultation's site plans, that some of the trail's downhill sections fall inside the proposed development boundary, and that construction would remove the existing trails and the woodland they run through.
- A concern that the site would be closed to public access throughout construction, with some suggesting it could be several years before trails are usable again.
None of this has been independently confirmed.
Open questions
iBikeRide has put the following questions to Skyline directly and will update this article with any response:
- How much of the existing trail network, including its downhill sections, sits within the proposed development boundary, and how was that assessed?
- If required, where exactly will the proposed replacement tracks be located?
- If trail sections inside the boundary are lost during construction, will public access to the wider site be suspended entirely, and for how long?
- What binding commitments, if any, will be written into the planning permission itself to protect the tracks, rather than a verbal or published assurance?
- If the removal of these tracks is required for a private development, will the private developer be financially responsible for the full cost of replacing them, or will it fall entirely on the public? As important context, these tracks were already built with £2.5 million of public funding.
- Could the proposed chairlift ever offer uplift for mountain bikers, or is it intended solely for luge and pedestrian visitors?
Have your say
The three-week public consultation ran until Sunday 27th September 2026. Drop-in sessions are being held on Wednesday 9 September at Heist Brew Co, Neepsend Lane, and Thursday 10 September at Shirecliffe Community Centre, Shirecliffe Road. Feedback can also be submitted through the Skyline Sheffield Project website. Skyline expects to submit a full planning application by the end of the year, with a decision anticipated in spring 2027.
If you ride the Parkwood Springs Mountain Bike Trail, check out its iBikeRide listing to add your own reviews, photos and videos, and let us know if you spot any changes on the ground as this project develops.