Plans are afoot to bring some serious Hollywood glamour to the bleak Swanscombe peninsula in Kent, but is it the right place for a US-style theme park?
As the sleet blows in off the North Sea and Britain teeters on the brink of a triple-dip recession, it takes a lot of imagination to see a £2bn theme park at Gravesend.
The bleak Swanscombe peninsula, jutting out into the muddy Thames Estuary between Northfleet and Ingress Park does not immediately suggest Hollywood glitz. Yet the 827-acre site, owned by the Lafarge Cement empire, is now the subject of an energetic campaign to turn it into Britain’s first seriously US-style theme park. Complete with daily carnival parades and resort facilities, it will rival Disneyland Paris and the Universal Studio Tours in California.
Last October, Lafarge and its partners, Brookfield Multiplex and Development Securities, formed London Resort Company Holdings to build a single-site theme park, resort, cinema and performing arts centre. There will also be a training academy for the entertainment and hospitality industries, and a country park.
They have already spent £5m working up the idea – having appointed London Olympics commercial director Chris Townsend to lead the fundraising drive – and a planning application is expected later this year. If the finance emerges, it could welcome visitors in 2018.
London Resort Holdings has bought a licence from Paramount Films and project leader Tony Sefton says the park will be strongly branded: “Huge numbers of people see Paramount films and this is going to be about Hollywood, that glamour.
“People on the street won’t necessarily know that Paramount made Titanic or Indiana Jones, but the film brands themselves will appeal.”
Lessons have been learned from debt-laden Disneyland Europe outside Paris – and not the least of them is to keep borrowing under control.
“The lesson from Euro Disney is about gearing for projects like this – by their own admission they got that wrong. And when they opened they plonked US culture in Northern Europe, and there are cultural lessons in that. It is important our park has a very British feel to it.”
To be both Hollywood and British simultaneously might seem a tall order, but Sefton is confident the two can coexist. “Look at The Italian Job, a Paramount picture that is as British as they come,” he says.
The rides are more likely to be themed like Universal Studios and Disney, rather than thrill-based rides of the kind known from Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.
The economic spin-offs could include as many as 27,000 construction jobs and plenty of scope for the local economy to claim a slice of the visitor spend. Sefton points out that only a third of the accommodation is inside the park.
Theme park specialists are generally supportive of the Swanscombe plan.
Swen Darcy, director at London-based Hotel and Resort Advisers, says it could fill the gap in the UK for a large Disney or Universal Studios-style theme park.
“Take into consideration that more than 13% of all guests visiting Disneyland Paris in the first half of 2012 were from the UK – that’s 900,000 visits – and there is clearly a market for such destination within the UK,” he says.
John Rushby, director at Colliers International, is also supportive. “Theme park operators blame petrol prices as often as the weather, so a location in the affluent South, with good public transport, has to be appealing,” he says.
As a brand, Paramount is not as well known as Disney – but the experts are upbeat. Is it a good or a bad omen that one of Paramount’s franchises is Mission:Impossible? By 2018, or thereabouts, we should know the worst.
Other attractions
North-west Kent already has a big – and rapidly expanding – visitor attraction at Bluewater.
In December 2012, Lend Lease submitted an outline planning application for a 330,000 sq ft extension. The new West Village will create a combination of retail and catering units that complements Bluewater’s existing aspirational mix. Planners are expected to make a decision in the spring.
Senior asset manager Russell Loveland brushes away concerns that the area’s infrastructure might struggle to cope with a mighty shopping centre and a mighty theme park. He says: “The Paramount plans are positive news and a further boost to the North Kent region.”
Location
Swanscombe is one of three potential launchpads for a new Thames crossing – and if it is chosen, could scupper the theme park plan. The park’s promoters say that official thinking is “moving away” from Swanscombe.
A spokesman for Kent county council says: “The big issue for us is the roads, which are always very busy. This could be the springing-off point for a new Thames crossing and with the Bluewater shopping centre growing too, we know this all has to fit together.”
Even if the Thames crossing threat is avoided, some sources suggest a location east of London has more limited appeal that one west of the capital – because that is where most of the UK’s population is.
Tony Sefton, project leader at London Resort Company Holdings, is not bothered: “West London already has Thorpe Park and Legoland, and we don’t want to add to the competition on the west. This is about redressing an imbalance. Remember, we will have mainline rail links to 20-plus European cities.”
Entertaining enterprise
A new type of enterprise zone – an “entertainment enterprise zone” – could be created on the north Kent coast to help coax investors into the 827-acre theme park.
A bid to government is being prepared and talks with investors are under way. “We are already having discussions on equity investments and talking to international banks and high-net-worth individuals,” says Tony Sefton, project leader at London Resort Company Holdings.
“Winning enterprise zone status is not essential, but it would accelerate the fundraising process.”
