Retrodome Must Seek Full Planning for Sheffield Arcade

Sheffield City Council refused Retrodome a Lawful Development Certificate for a planned pay-once arcade at 1-7 Allen Street. Officers said turning the former gym into a gaming arcade and family entertainment centre is a change of use, so planning permission is required before the floor can open.

Philip Thompson, who runs the Barnsley venue, had hoped the Sheffield copy would open in August 2026. The certificate would have let that happen without a separate full application. After the refusal, Retrodome Sheffield Limited still won a drinks licence on 21 July 2026, then told customers a change of use, reference 26/02132/CHU, had to be granted before opening.

The Certificate That Would Have Skipped Planning

A Lawful Development Certificate from the council is written confirmation that a proposed use is already lawful. If officers had granted it, the Allen Street scheme would not have needed a stand-alone planning application. The fee for a proposed-use certificate is half the full application fee, and the statutory process can take up to eight weeks.

Retrodome had the certificate bid in by early June 2026. A planning consultant’s report with that application said the family intended to repeat the Barnsley business model as a second venue, described as a family entertainment centre where people pay a fee to enter and then play on gaming machines for free. By early July the request had been refused. The company had originally hoped to open later that summer.

The council report said the plans would result in a change of use into a gaming arcade and family entertainment centre. “Planning permission is therefore required,” officers added.

THE THREE COUNCIL TRACKS

Those tracks do not substitute for each other. A drinks licence does not make the planning use lawful, and a refused certificate does not block a later full application. It does change the label the later application has to wear.

Why Officers Called It an Amusement Arcade

The 2020 use-class reforms were the obvious shortcut. Gyms sit in Class E, the wide commercial, business and service class created on 1 September 2020. Class E includes indoor sport, recreation or fitness for visiting members of the public, so a shop can become a gym, or a gym a café, without a fresh permission.

An amusement centre does not get that ride. Article 3 of the Use Classes Order says no class includes use as an amusement arcade or centre, or a funfair. That use sits outside the classes, often called sui generis, a use of its own kind. There is no general right to move from Class E into that group.

Retrodome’s pitch was that this is not a coin-drop arcade. Visitors would pay up front and then play as part of that fee, on 70s and 80s-style video games, pinball and air hockey, with food and a bar on site. The council report accepted there are no coin-entry machines on the floor, “except for two bandits within the bar area,” and that many cabinets could be called vintage. Officers still treated the primary use as a gaming arcade and family entertainment centre.

That is the second effect of the refusal. The family is no longer arguing the use is close enough to a gym to skip permission. On 13 August 2026 it told customers the Sheffield application seeks a change from Class E gym to sui generis family entertainment centre, and that this has to be granted before the building can open.

Barnsley Already Runs the Pay-Once Floor

The template is the existing Retrodome on Upper New Street in Barnsley, a former car parts warehouse of approaching 5,000 square feet over three industrial-themed floors. Luke Thompson, who manages the family business, said in June 2026 they had been looking for a Sheffield site for five years and that this was the first suitable venue they had found. “We’ve got the machines ready,” he said, and he hoped the new floor would open in August, “permitting.”

Entry at Barnsley is by a fixed price day ticket for all games. The bar area is open to the public without that charge. Cabinets are kept original where they can be, dings and cigarette burns included, rather than bartop emulators with LCD screens. Facebook listings for that venue put adults at £12.95, concessions at £10.95, kids at £8.95 and under 4s free, with all-day access and no coins.

THE BARNSLEY OFFER THEY WANT TO COPY

• The ticket: A fixed day price unlocks the gaming areas, with no coins or tokens on the machines.
• The bar: A licensed bar and eatery stays open to people who only want a drink, without paying the game ticket.
• The mix: Director Phil Thompson told the Sheffield licensing hearing that food, drink and soft drinks account for a maximum 25 per cent of turnover at Barnsley.
• The claim: Visitors are mainly friends and families, with school trips and community groups also using the floor for several hours at a time.

The Allen Street building is the former Kit Locker gym, later described at the licence hearing as a boxing gym, at S3 7AW near Kelham Island in Shalesmoor. Retrodome posted on 9 May 2026 that day one of renovating that gym was under way, months before the certificate was refused. The machines were already spoken for. The planning label was not.

Portland House Sat Across the Street

The premises licence application, from Retrodome Sheffield Limited, arrived on 5 June 2026. It asked for on-sales only from 11:00 to 22:30, earlier than most pubs nearby, for a free-play arcade with food and drink inside. Alcohol, the hearing was told, would be minor and ancillary. The main draw would be the games.

Sheffield public health and Waythrough, the drug and alcohol recovery service at Portland House opposite, objected. Sam Higgins of Waythrough, which treats around 4,100 people a year at that centre, said Retrodome customers would come into contact with clients, and that people recovering from alcohol addiction could be triggered by a licensed premises so close. A staff member who had gone through recovery had already flagged drinks adverts on the building.

The objection is just on the unique location of this site, immediately next to the gaming centre.

Greg Fell, Sheffield director of public health, licensing sub-committee, 21 July 2026

Amanda Pickard, public health principal, said it was not about responsible alcohol sales, it was about the immediate area. Bill Donne of Silver Fox Licensing Consultants, for Retrodome, said entry costs £12-14 and gives free access to the games, and that none are gambling machines or give prizes. “It is in very close proximity to Portland House. At what point do you stop allowing businesses to prosper?” he said. Donne also told the committee that planning officers had classed the use as an amusement arcade and that a change of use was being sought.

The licensing sub-committee still granted the licence on 21 July 2026, after physical changes meant to keep the two doors apart.

CONDITIONS TIED TO THE DRINKS LICENCE

• The door: The entrance was moved around the back of the building, out of sight of Portland House, rather than opening opposite the treatment centre.
• The ads: Alcohol advertising is to come off the front of the building.
• The windows: Views from windows overlooking Allen Street are to be blocked, with Donne saying decals would also stop anyone overlooking the Portland House car park.

Councillor Stuart Wallace noted that Shalesmoor Local Express nearby is plastered with alcohol adverts, and that several bars within walking distance can be entered free of charge. The recovery-centre objection is about this doorway, not about a dry street. Allen Street already sells drink. The fight was whether a pay-once arcade with a bar should add another licensed threshold directly across from a clinic that treats thousands of people a year.

What 26/02132/CHU Now Has to Prove

On 13 August 2026 Retrodome asked supporters to comment on 26/02132/CHU at 1-7 Allen Street, with a deadline of 24 August 2026. The application seeks permission to change the use from Class E gym to sui generis family entertainment centre. That is the sentence the refused certificate produced. The use is no longer being presented as indoor recreation that Class E already allows.

A full change of use is assessed against ordinary planning policy, including neighbours, hours, noise and how the floor sits in Shalesmoor. The drinks licence is already in hand, with the rear door, blanked ads and blocked windows as the working kit. Those conditions do not decide the planning question. They do show how the operator is trying to run a family entertainment centre on a street that also holds a treatment centre.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The certificate: Sheffield refused the Lawful Development Certificate and said planning permission is required for a gaming arcade and family entertainment centre.
• The licence: On-sales from 11:00 to 22:30 were granted on 21 July 2026, with the entrance, front advertising and Allen Street windows altered to face away from Portland House.
• The file: 26/02132/CHU is the change of use from Class E gym to sui generis family entertainment centre, with comments invited until 24 August 2026, and Retrodome said it must be granted before opening.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The decision: No published determination of 26/02132/CHU was attached to the public notices used for this account.
• The opening: No public opening date has replaced the August 2026 hope Luke Thompson set out in June.
• The machines: How the two bar “bandits” in the council report sit with Donne’s statement that none of the machines are gambling machines has not been reconciled in a later planning note.

Until officers determine the change of use, the cabinets can sit in a gutted gym and the licence can sit on the file. Neither opens the door to paying customers.

The Rear Entrance Is Not the End of It

The certificate fight was a classification fight. Officers would not treat a building full of arcade cabinets, pinball and air hockey as the same as the gym that preceded it, even with a day ticket instead of 10p coins. The family accepted that label in the August change-of-use notice.

That label is now the one neighbours, public health and the planning case officer will read. Portland House already lost the licensing round, after the door moved and the front was quieted. The planning round asks a wider question about whether this street should take a family entertainment centre at all, and on what hours and layout.

Retrodome still has the Barnsley floor, the machines Luke Thompson said were ready, and a drinks licence for Allen Street. It does not yet have the piece of paper the July refusal said it would need.