Rockingham Sports Ground: Barnsley Council seeks contractor for £1.7m replacement works

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council hopes contractors will submit expressions of interest for the works, which form part of the authority’s Hoyland masterplan redevelopment.

Applications will close on May 10, with the contract due to begin on September 16, 2024.

Despite campaigns and petitions to save it, the relocation of Rockingham Sports Ground to Parkside was approved in November 2023.

Campaigners hoped that the existing facility would remain, and Barnsley Council denied breaching a historic covenant protecting the existing sports ground, which was gifted to miners by Earl Fitzwilliam of Wentworth Woodhouse.

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During the meeting to approve the plans, councillor Andrew Wray, Independent representative for Rockingham, told the meeting that although the new sports facility would be “great”, the “voices of the residents hadn’t been taken into consideration”.

He added that losing the field “has not gone down well with the community”.

Planning bosses said the old site was no longer fit for purpose, and when complete, will “provide a new purpose-built community and sports facility”.

Plans include a single-story 40.5m by 17.9m building with a reception area, café, studio spaces, two full-size sports team changing rooms, changing rooms for sports officials, accessible changing rooms, and a floodlit artificial grass sports pitch.