This September Sheffield, England will get the country’s largest climbing gym. At least that’s what is what is promised by Dave Douglas, owner of Awesome Walls. Their newest facility will be the company’s fifth gym in the UK. Just six months after opening their Dublin location, owner Dave Douglas is pushing hard to open this new facility as soon as possible.
Mr. Douglas told UKC News:
My initial thought was to start building as soon as possible to be open for Christmas 2012. Alas, this is not to be, a project of this size needs careful planning to make sure it’s a commercial success and not follow in the footsteps of two other major walls in the UK that were a bit too big for their boots!
The change of usage for planning permission has been submitted, several wall manufactures have been consulted and the plans are growing more exciting by the day. If we’re going to do this in Sheffield, we have to do it right.
Initially a two phase build was proposed but now this has been scrapped and we’re going for the full hit even though this will delay our opening a couple of months.
Assuming planning permission is granted by the end of September we aim to be open early 2013 but we have some serious work to undertake not to mention getting AWCC Dublin open on time!
Sheffield is the epicenter of UK rock climbing and already home to three other large climbing centers including the legendary Foundry, the Edge and Climbing Works Bouldering Gym.
This newest facility of Awesome Walls will conform to the British Mountaineering Council‘s new criteria for a “National Performance Centre”. According a BMC document, “The BMC has established this process to encourage the development of climbing wall facilities capable of running national and international competitions across England and Wales.”
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