The ill-fated town centre redevelopment project took another turn for the worse today as it was announced that it is now not projected to be completed until 2027.
Last year it was revealed that Barnsley Council had blown its entire contingency budget - money intended to bribe retailers into the newly-created units - prompting fears that the project would end up being another Alhambra Centre (the town's current main shopping centre that in its near-30 year history has never managed to simultaneously fill all of its half-dozen units, and that has an atmosphere as soulless as Coventry).
With experts predicting the complete end of high street retail as early as 2022, however, the concern now is that the new centre will never actually be occupied - despite assurances from the town's three biggest employers, Poundland, Greggs and Wetherspoon, that they will occupy all 400 units on a rolling 10-year lease.
We asked the council how something that was supposedly in the planning for nearly 20 years could turn into such a monumental shambles, but no one was available for comment - though we did find some rough drawings of the new centre on the back of a discarded fag packet in the council smoking den, suggesting that the planning stage had indeed been given the council's usual professional attention.
Neither could we confirm rumours that the council had decided to cut its losses and demolish the entire town centre altogether, replacing it with a giant taxi rank and train station to ferry people to the local first-world cities of Leeds and Sheffield to do their shopping.
A satirical look at all the news and happenings in the idyllic hamlet of Barnsley
