First look at the new Forge Island development in Rotherham

After several years, Forge Island is back in business! Here’s my first impressions.

The hotel and cinema are now finished. We are still waiting on other businesses to open there.

It is a big improvement on the old Tesco which was there before.

Hopefully I’ll get back another day with @timawells to do a higher quality video.

so here on the river and the trans panan Trail we’ve got the ark Cinema which if it’s not open yet it’s certainly opening soon looks quite nice now it’s all done up so from this angle near the train station we can see the new Travel Lodge hotel so the sign the says the car park is Hotel Customs only so this is what’s been built recently this is underneath the Travel Lodge don’t know if you can see it cuz it’s a bit dark parking I think I said 150 for an hour or so some bicycle stands there it’s actually quite big this car park fin the old venue which was a Tesco did have quite a big car park I won’t go over the bridge because it looks like it’s shut up there coming back out you can see we’ve got this is the ark Cinema don’t know if it’s open yet you see here we’ve got all these EV charging spaces I don’t know if you have to pay for it or not let’s go and have a look project DV swipe your card or scan the code first so I’m going to guess you got to have to pay for it somehow this is actually quite a a low roof in here so one time you could walk up here uh but obviously not anymore I expect there will be opening that up at some point so we’ll have to go Corporation Street just here we’ve got some uh bicycle lockers this is something you see in Rin but don’t see in many places these are actually new a few years ago and they’re a really good way of locking your bike up you just shove your bike in with your helmet and your lights and your panas and put a little padlock on it it’s really convenient but they’re quite expensive for councilors to put in and they’re never well maintained so we’ve got quite a lot of these which which are actually out of order or damaged so we’re just coming up what was once the Scala I think that was a cinema but in recent years it’s been a bingo hall but now it’s all closed down and boarded up so this is where the old Wilkinson’s building was this way to forge Island so we’re just coming up to what was called Tesco’s bridge and this looks like it’s all been opened up since IAS came here and indeed it has the Tesco Bridge has been rebuilt and opened up so let’s go over it for the first time I must say the old Tesco Bridge was very very Tatty and very deric this one actually looks really new and nice and it’s open so you get a nice view of town from over there you can see the river going down there there’s the car park where we’ve just been and perhaps we’ll be able to go and watch a film [Applause] now so here it is here’s the ark Cinema so there’s some prices and offers self-service ticket machines and some sort of counter tickets food and drink we’ve got a counter there a few stuff but uh doesn’t look like any customers so I don’t know what films are on or how much it will cost I don’t know if you can see on the video but uh that’s obviously not finished and if we come around here we can see the new flood barrier on the canal we can see rather police station and just here we can see where the uh magistrates Court was rather magistrates Court was built in the mid 1990s and was shut and demolished about a decade ago after only a 20-year lifespan so there’s the entrance to the new Travel Lodge and there’s the car park where we’ve just been so I’m I’m not going to go down there it’s not little play play thing with slides for the children I’m not going to go down there I’m going to go back across the Tesco bridge in fact I wonder how long it to take people to stop them calling it Tesco Bridge it was Tesco bridge for that many years and coming across the bridge we’ve got a wonderful view of R Minster well I must admit my first impressions of the new Forge Island I’ve not been on it yet that’s the first time my first impressions very very good it’s a big Improvement on what we’ve had before it’s just about time that they improve the rest of the to center now