Campaigners and professional skiers have urged the council to take action to bring snow sports back to Sheffield on the 13th anniversary of the arson attack. 

The Ski Village was set ablaze by vandals in 2012 and has never been restored.

No one has been prosecuted by South Yorkshire Police and the village is now a hotspot for fly-tipping and vandalism.

The council secured £19.5m in funding from the Levellinf Up fund, and have contracted a New Zealand private developer, Skyline Luge, in December 2024, but no formal plans have been made public.

Pete Shipston, 51, founded Revive Rewild, a company focused on advocating for the return of the Ski Village to Sheffield and promoting the creation of green spaces across the city.

The company launched a campaign ‘Revive Sheffield Ski Village’ one month ago, and has since gained a large number of supporters, including professionals who used to train on the dry slope. 

He said: “Sheffield is the outdoor city. There’s a wealth of talent that could easily be transferred from mountain biking, skating and gymnastics to Snowsports. 

“We have some cracking sportspeople in this city, they’re out there and they’re waiting for this.”

The key campaigners have attended Sheffield City Council’s Extraordinary, Transport, Regeneration, Climate Policy Committee meetings and raised official questions. 

The campaign currently has over 400 supporters and aims to gain thousands more as the planning process moves forward to ensure a dry slope is included in the plans.

The abandoned village has been repeatedly targeted by arsonists, with the latest incident occurring on 23 April, when South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue responded to multiple reports of a fire.

A spokesperson told the BBC they believed it was started deliberately. 

The Ski Village was once a training hub for England’s top skiers and snowboarders, who used its racing and freestyle facilities to train all year-round. 

Sheffield-born skier, Paddy Graham, 37, emerged from the city’s Ski Village to become Britain’s leading freeskier and earned the infamous Red Bull ski helmet in 2008.

Mr Graham was eager to show his competitors where he first learnt to ski, but it burned down only days before their trip. 

He said: “Always for me growing up you would look up onto the hill and see the ski slope there. I was gutted. 

“If they make a training facility for athletes with an airbag and a jump, that will give the UK scene an advantage again that it doesn’t have anymore.”

At the time, Sheffield’s Ski Village was Europe’s biggest artificial slope, with state-of-the-art

In March 2023, the skier returned to Sheffield and made the most of the city’s rare snowfall, creating a viral moment in the snow sports community.

Kimberley Kay, 52, is campaigning alongside Revive Rewild to make the sport accessible to people again. 

Ms. Kay, a former ski racer, now works to break down barriers for women in snow sports and is the author and illustrator of Ski A to Z.

She believes that children will benefit the most from its reconstruction.

Ms Kay said: “Every school-age child should have the opportunity to try snow sports and have those doors open to them.” 

“People going from Sheffield ski village to having snow sports careers to include the Olympics is phenomenal and I think it’s really sad that that has been lost, so it should be restored.” 

The council’s regeneration committee are waiting to receive a planning application from Skyline Luge.