| LONDON SNOWDOME ON WAY? |
11 September 2003 |
| With Castleford opening up later this month, plans are apparently back on to build the long-waited for London snowdome at 'Beckton Alps'. The Evening Standard recently reported that a bidding war is going on to take the development forward. Administrator Begbies Traynor was called in earlier this year when a consortium ran out of cash after beginning construction work. Property specialist Edward Symmons began marketing the 3.3-acre piece of land when the freeholder, Newham Borough Council, insisted that it still wanted a ski centre to go ahead. The original plans were unveiled back in October 2001, when backers boasted that 16 million people would be within a 90-minute drive of the slope. Critics have questioned the venture's viability, given the costs involved, the difficulty in attracting enough visitors through the door, and potential environmental problems from contaminated land dating back to the site's days as a slagheap. There is also the prospect of intense competition from the three-year-old Xscape snowdome in Milton Keynes, now headed by former Millennium Dome boss Pierre-Yves Gerbeau. As well as Castleford the group is developing a dome in Glasgow and has already stated its intention of considering a site in the M25 corridor closer to Essex, right in Beckton's target market. A spokeswoman for Xscape cryptically commented: "Beckton is
not the right location for us. We would want to be closer to central
London or further out." Mail
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