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[202X] Project Horizon (SW9?): Planning Approved

Dave said:
I would put money on people having flown drones up, they just haven’t had anything interesting to post. Now Nemesis construction is visible from the park you don’t gain much from drone footage of that.
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Would they necessarily fly drones while the park is operating, though? You don’t need drone footage for updates when the park is open, and I seem to remember cases of people getting into a lot of trouble for flying drones over the park during operating hours.

It’s also worth noting that the construction timeline they gave may not necessarily be the actual timeline they work to, as this has happened with Towers projects in the past. For instance, I seem to remember Wicker Man’s project start date being described as September 2016 in the planning application, but construction on that didn’t begin until the start of the off-season in November and the ride was still mostly completed a good couple of months before opening.
 
The planning documentation states that the time the park is expecting construction to take is 'approximately 78 weeks'. If that 78 weeks is running right up until opening day, an 8th March 2025 opening would see that construction time due to start sometime in the second week of September and the third week of September for a 15th March opening day.

We have a bit of time yet.
 
tayspru said:
I also suspect that the construction crew will be moving out of the Nemesis site fairly soon, handing over to contractors for theming and other site enchancements (queue lines, repaints, landscaping etc), which would free them up to begin on Horizon
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This is a good point; they do seem to have been getting a real wriggle on with the reassembly of the Nemesis track as of late. Could this be so that the construction crew can swiftly move onto the Project Horizon site?
 
Matt N said:
Would they necessarily fly drones while the park is operating, though? You don’t need drone footage for updates when the park is open, and I seem to remember cases of people getting into a lot of trouble for flying drones over the park during operating hours.
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The site where Horizon will be is not visible within or outside the park, so drones will be the only way anyone will see construction progress. Nemesis is visible at all angles during this season, so there is no need for drones to fly over there at present.

I'm not sure what the rules are regarding drones. Maybe they can be flown over the park outside operating hours (in the evenings/early morning). Not my area of knowledge though so I could be wrong.

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If Horizon gets pushed back one year, and as unlikely as it is, I would like to see it form as a part of a complete overhaul/retheme of Walliams World, with the existing rides rethemed (maybe get Gansta Granny changed to an interactive ride), a new flat ride and the 3D cinema return, then a season or two later follow up with a Dungeons retheme.
 
I did see on one of the blogs I believe was Digital Dan speculating some trees have been cleared behind the dungeons?

I do believe that figures started in planning could be the complete costs of build, reading on here a while back Merlin did a bulk deal purchasing 3 rollercoasters (Thorpe, Chessington…Alton?) I understand ground work has to take place but does building a tin shed really cost more than a few million? Does it even cost 1 million?

Maybe aiming this at families there not blowing all of the Capex budget, entirely on the main attraction and spending there budgets wisely across the park. Since they were taken over it does appear there after a “long term strategy” some what?
 
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TroySmith1 said:
I did see on one of the blogs I believe was Digital Dan speculating some trees have been cleared behind the dungeons?

I do believe that figures started in planning could be the complete costs of build, reading on here a while back Merlin did a bulk deal purchasing 3 rollercoasters (Thorpe, Chessington…Alton?) I understand ground work has to take place but does building a tin shed really cost more than a few million? Does it even cost 1 million?

Maybe aiming this at families there not blowing all of the Capex budge, entirely on the main attraction and spending there budgets wisely across the park. Since they were taken over it does appear there after a “long term strategy” some what?
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I might be remembering wrong but i think the 3 roller coaster deal was between Merlin and B&M for Maximus at Legoland Deutschland, Mandrill Mayhem at Chessington and another coaster that hasn't been built.
 
Some parts of Alton's airspace is restricted due to the proximity of EMA, as far as I am aware. But I couldn't say whether or not it covers the Horizon site
 
Dobba said:
The planning documentation states that the time the park is expecting construction to take is 'approximately 78 weeks'. If that 78 weeks is running right up until opening day, an 8th March 2025 opening would see that construction time due to start sometime in the second week of September and the third week of September for a 15th March opening day.

We have a bit of time yet.
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Given how fast Nemesis' rebuild has taken in which likely see all the track in place by the end of this month, then this is certainly likely that the team will move to the other end of the park soon enough.
 
we don’t even know if the same company/team that are working on nemesis will be working on horizon do we?, It’s a completely different construction with very differing parameters.
 
Connor98 said:
we don’t even know if the same company/team that are working on nemesis will be working on horizon do we?, It’s a completely different construction with very differing parameters.
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It might be a completely different team but whoever it is will definitely be using a Steve Foster crane. Freeing up one of the those currently on the Nemesis site seems more likely than them sending out another one.
 
Connor98 said:
we don’t even know if the same company/team that are working on nemesis will be working on horizon do we?, It’s a completely different construction with very differing parameters.
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Considering the team that are currently involved with retracking Nemesis also did construction for World of Jumanji and clearance of Old Town for Project Exodus. It wouldn't surprise me if Merlin's increased spending across the board has used the same contractor to get better value for money than using 3/4 different construction contractors. They will have secured the contractor at least 4 years worth of work.

On a sidenote, it's not been mentioned elsewhere but we won't be seeing Kettle & Talbot again as they went into administration during the third lockdown in the pandemic...
 
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It also wouldn’t be just a 3 coaster deal between Merlin and B&M if there were to be a deal, as Merlin has also ordered a considerable number of family B&Ms for their new-build Chinese Legolands; they’re building a number of new Legolands in China, and each one is seemingly receiving both a family wing coaster and a family invert.
 
I think there is about a 50/50 chance whether this will be an IP or not. I think it's far from confirmed either way and I think there are strong arguments for both in a business sense. I think that's part of the reason this project is so interesting. In terms of construction I wouldn't have expected them to start until closed season and other have mentioned we don't actually know what they were including in there construction timetable for the application, it could be simple things that aren't particularly visible at this stage.
 
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