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Kent, England | The London Resort | Entertainment Complex

Dar said:
It's interesting that every other entertainment resort/whatever is pushing CAPEX back at least a year, scaling down non-essential spending, and worrying about how they're going to recover, while these guys apparently never got the memo.
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I suppose the only physical assets they have to lose is the purchased land. Other entertainment businesses are trying to preserve what they already have, but when you have nothing, why not keep the pace up?
 
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I could be reading into this a little too much, but I was just on ThemeParX, a forum that looks to have fairly good industry links, and I noticed on their London Resort topic (http://www.themeparx.com/the-london-resort-paramount-park-london/) that they have actual companies to do with the project listed, such as ride suppliers. Some particular things of note I saw include:
The operator is listed as MR ProFun, a company who looks to have designed and opened a number of theme parks & tourist attractions across the world.
Companies like Jack Rouse Associates and Scruffy Dog are listed as theming suppliers.
Ride suppliers listed include Alterface, Simworx, Huss Rides, Mack Rides and WhiteWater West.
The forum looks to have good industry links, so could there be more credibility behind this than some assume? If suppliers have been identified, there’s clearly been a lot of thought put in! And some of these aren’t your everyday ride suppliers (e.g. B&M, Intamin, RMC); some of these are quite specific. They won’t just have been plucked from thin air.
EDIT: How come I can’t format posts e.g. add bullet pointed lists?
 
Matt N said:
I could be reading into this a little too much, but I was just on ThemeParX, a forum that looks to have fairly good industry links, and I noticed on their London Resort topic (http://www.themeparx.com/the-london-resort-paramount-park-london/) that they have actual companies to do with the project listed, such as ride suppliers. Some particular things of note I saw include:
The operator is listed as MR ProFun, a company who looks to have designed and opened a number of theme parks & tourist attractions across the world.
Companies like Jack Rouse Associates and Scruffy Dog are listed as theming suppliers.
Ride suppliers listed include Alterface, Simworx, Huss Rides, Mack Rides and WhiteWater West.
The forum looks to have good industry links, so could there be more credibility behind this than some assume? If suppliers have been identified, there’s clearly been a lot of thought put in! And some of these aren’t your everyday ride suppliers (e.g. B&M, Intamin, RMC); some of these are quite specific. They won’t just have been plucked from thin air.
EDIT: How come I can’t format posts e.g. add bullet pointed lists?
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I'm doubtful that the list is complete at this point - it's definitely plausible that these manufacturers are involved, or possibly were at least in talks at various stages since 2012, but I'm fully expecting more to be added assuming the project actually materializes (definitely holding out hope for an RMC around the castle - I can dream, right?) .

It's also interesting that PY Gerbeau is trying to avoid using elements from other parks ("We’re not here to copy what’s been done before even if it has been successful.") - although this approach backfired for Merlin with their projects trying to be "world firsts" every time. Let's hope they don't make every attraction a maze or escape room.
 
Matt N said:
I could be reading into this a little too much, but I was just on ThemeParX, a forum that looks to have fairly good industry links, and I noticed on their London Resort topic (http://www.themeparx.com/the-london-resort-paramount-park-london/) that they have actual companies to do with the project listed, such as ride suppliers. Some particular things of note I saw include:
The operator is listed as MR ProFun, a company who looks to have designed and opened a number of theme parks & tourist attractions across the world.
Companies like Jack Rouse Associates and Scruffy Dog are listed as theming suppliers.
Ride suppliers listed include Alterface, Simworx, Huss Rides, Mack Rides and WhiteWater West.
The forum looks to have good industry links, so could there be more credibility behind this than some assume? If suppliers have been identified, there’s clearly been a lot of thought put in! And some of these aren’t your everyday ride suppliers (e.g. B&M, Intamin, RMC); some of these are quite specific. They won’t just have been plucked from thin air.
EDIT: How come I can’t format posts e.g. add bullet pointed lists?
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Well that sort of explains why there looks to be a space-themed Mack launch coaster on the concept art.

Also I don't know why you can't use bullet points. Are you using mobile?

The thing that saddens me here is that there is potential to add a world-class coaster here, but that seems like it won't happen. Then again they are proposing two gates, so we can always hope the second gate will contain something better.
 
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Matt N said:
I’m not using Tapatalk, but I am viewing the website on my iPad. For some reason, I’ve lost all ability to format my posts in any way; I can’t change the text to bold, italics or underline, change the text colour, embed media or anything.
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That's happened to me before on mobile. It seems like there's a 50/50 chance on whether it will work or not from my experiences.
 
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Make sure you haven't got this toggled. It'll grey out most of the 'quick format' buttons and you'll have to go back to the olden days of typing out the BBCode manually, like this:

Code: 
[b]This makes this bold[/b]
[u][i]This makes this italic and underlined[/i][/u]
[quote="I can say anything here"]This makes a quote[/quote]
This makes this bold
This makes this italic and underlined
I can say anything here said:
This makes a quote
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And many, many more. :p
(Note: you can still just type the BBCode in, even if the toggle is off, and it'll convert it as you post)

If you've not accidentally toggled that, make a post in Team Talk and we'll look into it further.
 
For some reason, I’m on Safari today and it works, so I’m not sure what happened there! I’ll bear your advice in mind for the future in case it happens again, though!
 
Sorry for double posting, but in a very promising step for the project, the environmental report has now been released! And buckle up, because this post could be very long, as there’s quite a lot to cover! Here’s an article from SouthParks about the new development: https://www.southparks.co.uk/2020/06/24/london-resort-submit-scoping-report/

Particular things of note include:
  • Any roller coasters will not exceed 40m (131.3ft) in height. There goes my hopes for a hyper, but hey ho; 40m still isn’t an insignificant height to play with by any means, especially for a UK park!
  • The park will clearly have some pretty breathtaking theming, as they’ve said that any “mountains” (?!) will not exceed 60m (196.8ft) in height and buildings will not exceed 32m (105.1ft).
  • The Resort will be formed of two gates; the first will open in 2024 and the second in 2029.
  • Both gates will feature a mix of IP attractions and bespoke themes, and LRCH have asked for flexibility within the Development Consent Order to allow them to change and add rides as time goes on.
  • It is estimated that the Resort will attract 6.5 million guests per year with gate one, and 12.5 million once gate two is open. In terms of daily figures, they’re hoping for figures ranging between 7,000 and 53,000 with an average of 26,000 by 2029. It is only expected to exceed 35,000 on 54 days of the year. To me, this sounds like a far more plausible figure than the 15 million originally being thrown around.
  • The Resort will feature 4 hotels, with a total of 3550 rooms being provided. They will be located between the two gates, with one possibly being integrated into gate one. The accommodation will be wide-ranging in terms of demographic, and some hotels will be IP-themed. LRCH plans for 2500 of the hotel rooms to open with gate one and a further 1050 to open with gate two.
  • The entertainment district will contain “facilities for both business and leisure purposes”. A “Conferention Centre” (apparently a combo of a conference centre and a convention centre) will be included, with capacity for up to 3,000 seated visitors; it will apparently be used for things such as concerts, live TV broadcasts, exhibitions and conventions. They’re also building an eSports arena as well as theatres showcasing “West End-quality productions”.
  • The Resort will have 10,000 car parking spaces in total, with 7,500 at the Resort itself and 2,500 in Tilbury on the opposite bank of the River Thames, from which guests will take a river taxi to the Resort. There will be 4 multi-storey car parks, with each containing up to 10 decks.
  • Various different means of transport to the Resort are being considered. As well as a dedicated Resort access road for guests travelling by car, there will be various pedestrian and cycle routes built in the local area as well as a 3.1km people mover route between a proposed “Resort travel interchange” next to Ebbsfleet International Station and a ferry terminal on Ebbsfleet Peninsula. This route will be served by shuttle buses carrying 100-150 people each.
  • In a similar style to Disney, 500 apartments are also being built for Resort staff to use. These will be shared accommodation with 4-6 bedrooms, as well as shared kitchen & lounge facilities.
Well, that’s just about everything notable I could find in the article!

Isn’t this exciting? The pace of the project really seems to have picked up lately, and this is probably the most specific look we’ve had so far!
 
Thanks for the sum up @Matt N , really interesting to see what there thinking up.

Shame about the coaster height though I wanted hyper too, there is a lot they can do with that height, I’ll be happy with an intamin blitz☺️

However if they can build 60m high mountains, they could always do a out and back hyper and cover the hills with mountains as a back drop?
 
Purely using the plans as a guide to rides (though I'm assuming layouts are placeholders for now), I can see potentially 5 roller coasters and 3 water rides in the Gate 1 area and another 3 roller coasters in the Gate 2 area - let's hope they're good ones!
 
^ Images from the above linked article by southparks
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FYI there's more on the southparks page focussing on the infrastructure proposals.


Further FYI with huge structures such as the dartford crossing and quayside cranes near by, if they throw enough pretty words (and money) at the local council they can definitely get away with breaking that height barrier. That's just to keep them happy for now whilst they try and look respectful of the environment and propose some of the more 'serious' bits of the project, like the key infrastructure links.

Certainly an interesting development! Nice to see something a bit more legitimate come to fruition.

A link to the full pdf - scanning now to try and find out if there's any other gems of info SP missed:

(Double edit) Im bored so I'm gonna break down the whole document for you guys. Just spent 3 years at uni making this kinda document albeit on a much smaller scale so this'll be fun *cracks imaginary knuckles*
 
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Optimism seems to be paying off here, this is starting to become more likely now, just really hope they manage to figure everything out and get it built.

Shame about the height limit, but I'm about 80% sure we'll be seeing a ~40m tall Mack launch coaster, if this goes ahead.

Also the second gate seems a lot smaller and less substantial than the first?
 
Doing it's own separate post. Sorry mods. Not spam :)

The document is very much a surveying one, which is not my area of expertise (apart from the drawings), however i have a little bit of an understanding of it. The focus is obviously on the impact of the proposal on everything from the fish in the Thames to the traffic in south Essex, however there is still some other, interesting bits of info that can be derived from it. Matt N's post does a really good job at highlighting some of the more interesting bits of info from it.

  • The first part of the document breaks down all of the planning guidelines, frameworks and documents that the proposal is compliant with; an essential part of UK developments.
  • I believe there is a table which shows alternate site options the development team did studies of, interestingly including the Olympic park & several locations just North of London, and Southend.

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  • The design has been massively matured since 2014/15, as can be seen on page 54 of the report (2015 is first image, most recent 2nd)
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  • Project site is 504 hectares
  • 500 apartments with shared living room and kitchen facilities for workers. Surprised it wasn't more but thats the cap for this kind of project.
  • All forms of travel will be directed to the 22,500m2 entry plaza.
  • The main comment about the height of structures is to avoid sight lines that clash with neighbourhood or electricity lines to allow for full immersion. With the QE2 bridge, electricity pylons including a 190m super pylon as well as riverside freight cranes, they will have plenty of nearby examples to break their current 60m barrier.
  • The proposal will include cycle routes round the area, and will ‘enhance’ existing public transport routes to encourage non-car modes of transport, especially for staff. Further info in the DCO at a later time. (DCO means development consent order)
  • It’s own sub station will be built, along with waste facility, water treatment work and these will use sustainable drainage systems.
  • Flood defences that comply with kent’s 2100 thames estuary flood strategy (it won’t sink hopefully)
  • Those habitats which will be destroyed or displaced by the development will be compensated for by the moving of (where possible) animals and the creation of off site appropriate habitats
  • as said elsewhere, 6.5 million annual guests with 1 gate, 12.5 with 2, 12% of which will be overseas.
  • I would really recommend looking at the drawings on the actual pdf from page 80 onwards to see stuff in high detail.
  • they REALLY want people to use tilbury rather than the crossing lol - they predict 25% of attendees will use the Tilbury dock & boat, which should decrease traffic coming from north of the river quite a bit
  • because the site sits on 3 different local planning authority areas they have 3 times as many schemes to sift through than usual, although they will likely be largely rinse and repeat.
  • The document acknowledges how bad the bottle neck at dartford is 1/3 of the way in the document and cites ongoing & future proposed works in its main issues page as the resolution. They point out that with the ferry dock and the decrease in resort size they’re expecting a reduction in m25 use but it’ll still be busy. :/
  • They have basically said ‘Don’t worry everyone we love how natural the area is and we promise not to f*** it up!’
    Having said that the site sits partially on green belt, public rights of way cross the site, ancient woodland is on the site and there’s some issues with some statutory landscape designations within 6km of the site which poses an issue. Fortunately the site has just 3 listed buildings within it, and only a couple of historically important dig sites.
  • By now we’re up to the maps on page 172. you’re going to be able to see it from a good 5km away at its proposed height. Case studies like Silver Star could be used to show how impressive having taller structures would be for the drive up.
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  • The images up to page 218 really show you how colossal this project site is. Its way more than just a theme park. We knew this but seriously, this thing is gargantuan. So much more infrastructure, green space and area working around road and train networks than just a resort. And even then the resort has been massively shrunk from the proposals 5-6 years ago. Mental stuff.
  • Studies have been ongoing from 2015 on the archaeological side of things. It’s starting to become clear that actually the stuff they’ve been doing has been very timely and they haven’t just been sitting about. With the reworking of the proposals to make them much more reasonable and the amount of work that is involved with infrastructure and desk study research its not surprising its taken so long, especially with the constant changing of funding, management and partners as well as the countries economy.
  • Lots of really interesting history stuff done by historians and archeologists. Could totally do an attraction around the areas rich history (pg 255-259)
  • They’re using framework that is used for roads and bridges in case they come across any archaeologically important bits and pieces because there is simply no framework appropriate for a project like this to be done in the UK. Very cool. As well as this it's worth noting that once the project is granted the go ahead the planning permissions will be a bit more relaxed due to the sheer scale of the development. A special government grant, first project of its kind in the UK. Can't remember the name of it but yeah.
  • Lots of notes on the concern of the crossing and traffic to the site, whether its noise, traffic congestion or air pollution. replies are noted, or we’re working on it as existing air quality management areas don’t reach far enough.
  • This is a greatly reassuring document which has plenty of detail and shows a lot of work has gone into making this project come to fruition, however it also displays the sheer amount of paperwork that the project team still have to produce (unless I have missed something? It seems like they are sure there are few matters to be scoped out despite these comments on outstanding studies to produce).


Should be noted the current lead of the project salvaged the projects that have become quite successful in the shape of Euro Disney & the Millenium Dome. Neither of those had strong starts, or indeed introductions, however they have both become iconic tourist destinations that can be seen today as positives. I hope that the same person can spearhead another project to success!
 
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