FULL planning permission for Middlesbrough’s much-anticipated snow centre is expected to submitted by the end of the year, a meeting has heard.

News on the £30m attraction, to be named Subzero, has been quiet in recent months.

Plans for a snow centre were first suggested in 2014, with an outline planning application approved in March 2017.

But on Wednesday a meeting of Middlesbrough Council’s Economic Development, Environment and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel heard real progress had been made.

The Northern Echo: CGI image of how Sub Zero, Middlesbrough's planned snow centre could look. Picture: Cool Runnings NECGI image of how Sub Zero, Middlesbrough's planned snow centre could look. Picture: Cool Runnings NE

“A lot of questions have been asked about why has this gone on for so long,”  said Middlesbrough Council project manager, Nasreen Younis.

“It’s around five years that I’ve worked on this, which is a long time. But in that time the developer has done a lot of research, studies etc. The positive thing is we’ve have multiple interest.”

Ms Younis said that a full site investigation, including analysis of the ground as well as reports on noise and air quality had all been completed and the next step would be for a detailed planning application to be submitted.

“They’ve had various pre-planning application meetings with ourselves and they’re assembling the information,” she said.

“And as I understand it, we should, or we anticipate, detailed planning application before the end of the year.”

But Cllr Ron Arundale, independent councillor for Kader, wasn’t filled with optimism.

“We’ve been here before, some years ago with the promise that a formal planning application would be in by the end of the year,” he said.

“I think this is the frustration with people, they think ‘what on earth is going on?’ This is dragging on and on and on, forever and a day.

“The other question would be, how much money have we given these people as a council?”

Ms Younis, said: “We’ve bought the land, and that’s at risk to the council.”

Middlesbrough Council’s head of economic growth, Sam Gilmore, said: “In terms of financial contribution, no cash or financial contribution has been given to the developer.

“There is an element of a conditional grant that has been provisionally allocated but only on the commencement on site.

“And that is to tie in the public realm of their site with the public realm for the wider council estate, so there’s a mutual benefit there.

“But that’s only on the condition of commencement on site.

“To get to commencement on site, they have to shown that they’ve got all the funding, all their financial arrangements and they are locked in with their construction partner.

“So it’s not money at risk at that point. They have to have shown us a lot of things and a lot of conditionality before that would ever occur.”

Ms Younis added that the council had also conducted feasibility studies on the site a number of years ago.

“I think the difference with this is that we are clearly very excited about the snow centre coming in that there is only a handful in the country,” she said.

“And the study that demonstrated figures of footfall of what it would bring to Middlesbrough is why we’ve worked closer with this I imagine than any other development that we would normally work on.

“Sometimes I think people think it’s our project, it’s not – it’s all developer led.”

In February, Rachael Howson, director of snow centre developers Cool Runnings, said she expected it to be ready by Easter 2022.

If constructed, Subzero would be the seventh snow centre in the UK.

A brochure for the project revealed that as well as featuring two ski slopes, Sub Zero will house a range of other leisure facilities.

Plans include an ice-climbing wall, a ‘skydive’ arena, climbing wall, soft play area and a trampoline park.

There will also be an ice bar, cafe and restaurant facilities, and related retail facilities.

And details revealed in October last year depicted plans to enhance the location’s water facilities on the surrounding dock area with water skiing and a surf pool.