Speaking to the Advertiser, chairman Tony Stewart explained why the club are looking to demolish the building and reveals that the state of the structure and immediate area has resulted in a fitness gym that was planning to move into a quadrant of the New York Stadium decide against it.
“This decision has not been made lightly. But no-one is interested in taking either part or the whole to renovate it. Whether there is a booming economy or not, it’s not viable.”
And despite being marketed for six months at the request of English Heritage, various enquiries have been made about the site, but have gone no further; “Clearly this building in its present form is detrimental to the site both from an aesthetic and material perspective.”a spokesman from Burgess commercial told the Advertiser.
As usual the Rotherham Civic Society are against the idea, secretary Peter Hawkridge said: “It’s the position of the Guest and Chrimes company in the industrial heritage of the town that’s so important.
“We agreed that the wings should be knocked down. But the office facade has a connection with a lot of people who worked there or grew up in Rotherham.
“It’s a shame that the people who have the money for developments like this haven’t been able to incorporate it into a new development.”Mr Stewart said: “The stadium has made a difference to the town. Now we would like to develop the total site to give value to the town centre.“Our thoughts were to try and save either some or all of the building.“We have done the marketing but it's still standing there and it’s dangerous. It's creating problems for the rest of the site, which people want to develop but need to know what’s happening with Guest and Chrimes.
“If we can get it taken down, we can get designers and planners to work together and be innovative and make a site to complement the towncentre and clear up what was once totally derelict.” he added
Source: MillersMAD.
Source: FOOTYMAD
