Property developer Oak Holdings has been granted a 250-year lease by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) for a 327-acre (132-hectare) site in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. The land will be developed to create the £350m YES! Entertainment complex.

The Yes! project is being created as the result of a joint venture between Oak Holdings, BT, E.ON and construction firm Laing O’Rourke, which has signed a partnership agreement to replace Skanska UK -– the original construction partner for the project.

Oak Holdings has recently secured a deal with one of its first tenants the Sheffield Steelers ice hockey team to develop a 60,000 sq ft, 5,000-seat arena. The Steelers will relocate to YES! in 2011.

Steelers’ owner Bob Phillips said: “This is a great deal for us. It will help us in our plans to grow our club and in our work to expand interest in ice-hockey throughout Yorkshire.”

The company has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Bayrdrive Group for the development of a golf driving centre.

Other facilities will include an extreme sports centre, to be managed by Venture Xtreme UK, offering 32 activities including ice climbing, caving, climbing and aerial ropeways and a visitor attraction which is likely to be developed in partnership with a theme park operator.

Yes! will also offer more than one million sq ft (93,000 sq m) of other leisure facilities including a four-star resort hotel and spa, a three-star family-orientated hotel, an Olympic canoe slalom, as well as numerous bars and restaurants.

In 2006 the project, which was jointly designed by Architects CZWG and Holder Mathias, was referred to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster (ODPM) because the proposed site for the development encroached on the region’s Green Belt. The ODPM decided no intervention was necessary.

Details: www.oakholdings.co.uk