It was one of the largest artificial ski resorts in Europe, with four pistes, nursery slopes, a snowboarding park and a toboggan run – not to mention the hotel, restaurant and ski wear shop – until it was gutted by fire in 2012.

Now there are new hopes that Sheffield Ski Village could reopen to the public. The city council has asked for proposals from developers to transform the derelict 30-acre site with the aim of reopening it as a “nationally significant attraction”.

Opened in 1988 in the Parkwood Springs area of the city, the dry slopes of Sheffield Ski Village attracted visitors from all over the country. Among the young enthusiasts who learned to ski or snowboard here were several future stars of Team GB’s Olympic squad, such as freestyle skiers James Woods, Katie Summerhayes and James Machon, and snowboarders Zoe Gillings and Jamie Nicholls.

The complex was initially closed in April 2012, after an accidental fire destroyed the main building. A spate of arson attacks then damaged it beyond repair, and the site became a blackspot for vandalism, graffiti and fly-tipping.

The site was hit by a number of arson attacks

There have been previous attempts to drum up support for redevelopment, including a campaign by Snowsport for Sheffield in 2014. Many of the Olympians who had trained at the site voiced their support, along with Ski Sunday commentator Ed Leigh, and a petition calling for the ski village to be reopened gained more than 5,000 signatures.

In 2015, two local skiers and a snowboarder filmed a stunt video amid the rubbish on the derelict slopes, hoping to publicise the site’s disrepair and boost the campaign for regeneration. “I want to see a regeneration of this space,” said filmmaker Edward Birch. “The ideal would be to see a sporting community back there, with skiing and snowboarding, walking, running and climbing – all the things that are important to Sheffield.”

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Sheffield native James Woods credits the site with launching his snow-sports career. He began skiing at the dry slopes aged 10, joining the Sharks Ski Club, and is now a world-class slopestyle skier with a number of medal wins, including a bronze medal at the 2011 X Games. In 2014 he represented the UK at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, coming fifth in the first ever ski slopestyle final at the Games.

“It would make me a really happy man if somebody or a group of people could get together and try to make Sheffield Ski Village something of what it once was,” he said. “I'm more than happy to invest my time and energy into whatever needs to be done to bring back what it was, to give opportunities to people who could turn out to be world champions or Olympians.”

Freestyle skier James Woods hopes to see Sheffield Ski Village open again Credit: 2013 AFP/JAVIER SORIANO

Recent years have seen innovative new developments in the creation of urban pistes, such as the announcement of a planned ski slope on the roof of a power station in Copenhagen in Denmark.

It’s unclear whether a reborn Ski Village will feature the same dry slopes as it had in its heyday, or whether the future lies in indoor pistes and real snow. However, in keeping with a council initiative promoting Sheffield as “The Outdoor City”, it’s thought the redeveloped site could incorporate biking trails and other activities along with winter-sports facilities.

Ski with Olympian Martin Bell in Banff on a 10-day trip with Telegraph Ski and Snowboard this January