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London Entertainment Resort: All Discussion

The Planning Inspectorate has today written to the London Resort advising it has turned down their request to delay examination until July. All documents that London Resort were wanting to update must now be submitted by 15th March.

The Planning Inspectorate have basically said they either submit the documents before then or they’ll go with what they currently have in front of them. They do not see sufficient progress from London Resort to even see that they could make the July date at present. They suggest London Resort could withdraw the application should they not be able to make the March date, but they cannot compel them to do so.

Based on all of the responses and lack of progress, this seems like the most sensible decision to me. This thing has dragged on for way too long.
 
Craig said:
The Planning Inspectorate has today written to the London Resort advising it has turned down their request to delay examination until July. All documents that London Resort were wanting to update must now be submitted by 15th March.

The Planning Inspectorate have basically said they either submit the documents before then or they’ll go with what they currently have in front of them. They do not see sufficient progress from London Resort to even see that they could make the July date at present. They suggest London Resort could withdraw the application should they not be able to make the March date, but they cannot compel them to do so.

Based on all of the responses and lack of progress, this seems like the most sensible decision to me. This thing has dragged on for way too long.
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Yes hopefully this brings this whole silly idea to a close. I’d love to see a new park built in this country however it won’t ever happen on the scale London Resort was proposing. I think if it were to happen it would more than likely be a conversation of a current leisure attraction into a park.
 
I look forward to the Fyre Fest-esque Netflix documentary in a couple of years.

The London Resort: The UK's Disneyland That Never Was.

Oh, and the inevitable video by Expedition Theme Park reading Wiki articles out about it.
 
JAperson said:
Yes hopefully this brings this whole silly idea to a close. I’d love to see a new park built in this country however it won’t ever happen on the scale London Resort was proposing. I think if it were to happen it would more than likely be a conversation of a current leisure attraction into a park.
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I agree, I'd love to see one too. But, companies wanting to do so have to be realistic in that it's an absolutely monumental task to do so and incredibly risky. It also shows just how essential it is to have local communities and businesses on side and communicated with effectively throughout.

As much as I still believe London Resort had the best of intentions in wanting to build the resort, they have shown a complete lack of respect for stakeholders in the local area, and to consultees who have had to spend substantial amounts obtaining professional advice with very little to no compensation for doing so. That's right from individuals, already struggling small businesses, right up to public bodies who have already had to deal with shrinking budgets in recent years.

It's absolutely essential to keep your neighbours onside throughout any planning application, even more so for a project of this size.
 
Craig said:
I agree, I'd love to see one too. But, companies wanting to do so have to be realistic in that it's an absolutely monumental task to do so and incredibly risky. It also shows just how essential it is to have local communities and businesses on side and communicated with effectively throughout.

As much as I still believe London Resort had the best of intentions in wanting to build the resort, they have shown a complete lack of respect for stakeholders in the local area, and to consultees who have had to spend substantial amounts obtaining professional advice with very little to no compensation for doing so. That's right from individuals, already struggling small businesses, right up to public bodies who have already had to deal with shrinking budgets in recent years.

It's absolutely essential to keep your neighbours onside throughout any planning application, even more so for a project of this size.
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Yes I think London Resort holdings have proven themselves incapable of managing to build the park in consultation with local people and planners. I think eventually we will see a new park in this country as so many parks have closed there definitely us a gap for another park (I wonder if we should make a thread about what sort of possible new park at some point).
If London Resort had aimed for a smaller more considerate park without massive grand plans it might well have happened but they wanted to go too big too quick. This always tends to fail in the theme park industry and there are numerious examples. I truly believe if the park had been built (there's still a tiny tiny chance it will but I highly doubt it) then it would've been a massive flop.
 
This thing is pretty dead in the water anyway, so news like this is hardly a surprise, but in the interests of completeness - BBC & ITV have confirmed they are no longer involved in licensing agreements with London Resort.

www.newsshopper.co.uk

BBC and ITV withdraw from London Resort plans over threat posed to wildlife

The BBC and ITV have withdrawn involvement with a £3.5billion theme park project in Swanscombe due to the threat it poses wildlife.
www.newsshopper.co.uk www.newsshopper.co.uk
 
AT86 said:
This thing is pretty dead in the water anyway, so news like this is hardly a surprise, but in the interests of completeness - BBC & ITV have confirmed they are no longer involved in licensing agreements with London Resort.

www.newsshopper.co.uk

BBC and ITV withdraw from London Resort plans over threat posed to wildlife

The BBC and ITV have withdrawn involvement with a £3.5billion theme park project in Swanscombe due to the threat it poses wildlife.
www.newsshopper.co.uk www.newsshopper.co.uk
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Another huge nail in the coffin for this project. There can't be much space in that coffin, with all the nails going through it.
 
JAperson said:
I reckon we put @Matt N in charge of a new theme park for Briton, call it optimism land, the country would feel revived, or at least I would.
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Perhaps my current Planet Coaster pet project, Sinister Springs (which on a side note, I am quite close to finishing the first area of!), probably wouldn’t be the best idea to apply to a UK park, then? If I were designing for the UK, I’d definitely concoct something a bit cheerier, as I think Merlin has horror pretty well covered already…

Besides, based on my current Planet Coaster record, I imagine that the cost of funding all the flamethrowers required in a Matt N park would give the British people a heart attack!

I do appreciate the vote of confidence though @JAperson, and I would (in theory at least) love to design and run a theme park, although I imagine I’d be pretty terrible at it!
 
As much as, sadly, we all felt that it was doomed, I do feel that our own, dare I say, snobby attitude of saying 'never going to happen' and 'told you so' does make us look arrogant which I hate to say but I just get that vibe from reading through this forum.

And for those saying that Merlin will improve now...no, that's just as foolish as saying this damn park will actually happen. :rolleyes:
 
In the latest drip drip of bad news for the developers, the local MP (who happens to be a government whip) has dropped his support for the project and says the application should be withdrawn:

www.kentonline.co.uk

'Enough is enough': MP ditches support for London Resort

An MP says he has run out of patience and is withdrawing his support for a multi-billion pound theme park billed as 'Kent's answer to Disneyland'.
www.kentonline.co.uk www.kentonline.co.uk
 
Official statement to come in due course this morning, but the London Resort is officially dead, planning application will be withdrawn.

But the story didn't end there

Apparently they're going to resubmit a modified planning application for the London Resort sometime in the Autumn.

Because of course this is one of those things that never ends, it just goes on and on and on and onand on and on and on....
 
MattyH said:
Official statement to come in due course this morning, but the London Resort is officially dead, planning application will be withdrawn.

But the story didn't end there

Apparently they're going to resubmit a modified planning application for the London Resort sometime in the Autumn.

Because of course this is one of those things that never ends, it just goes on and on and on and onand on and on and on....
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Come on Matt you know better than to post without sources 😉. This has come from a local councillor who heads up the Save Swanscombe Peninsular SSSI Group.

I would add that the project can’t be “officially dead” if there’s no official statement yet and they intend to submit a further application. I’d also add that while it’s good news on paper from an environmental point of view, I don’t think it really does anything to resolve the uncertainty that businesses in the area have, it’s merely yet again kicking the can further down the road.

This should have been something they did months ago when it was completely clear there was zero chance of them meeting any sort of dates they were banding about, even the extended ones. They’ve allowed the Planning Inspectorate to muck about with further site visits only a few weeks ago, and even arrange a procedural meeting which is due to take place in just a few hours later today. So much money down the drain, including a substantial amount of public cash, when it’s been clear for so long now that it’s not going to happen.

I got over any disappointment about this project happening a long time ago, but there’s still an annoyance there for the innocent people caught up in this mess through no fault of their own. It’s also how this likely makes future attractions in the UK a much more difficult prospect, as potential financial backers will no doubt refer to the mess of this project when making funding decisions.
 
This thread will have been going 10 years in October. The whole thing is one giant mess and the plug should have been pulled long ago. It really is terrible for the businesses in the area who can't operate and grow as they would like due to all of the uncertainty.

I still remember when I went to one of the original public consultation events a fair number of years ago now, and we took a little look at the site from a vantage point on a passing road. In my opinion it was never a great location for a theme park.
 
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