Plans for £2.5billion 'British Disneyland' just outside London axed
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Plans for a huge £2.5bn theme park out of London dubbed Britain’s answer to Disneyland appear to have been scrapped after the company behind it was ordered into insolvency. The proposed London Resort would have covered 535 acres of the Swanscombe Peninsula near Dartford, consisting of an amusement park and water resort on the banks of the Thames.
![[BRITAIN-ENTERTAINMENT-LIFESTYLE-LONDON RESORT]](https://static.standard.co.uk/2021/03/11/20/AFP_93D7ZK.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
But the long-awaited plans were ended this week after the High Court ordered London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) into liquidation. The insolvency came after a bitter legal dispute with entertainment giant Paramount, which had agreed to lend its name to the park.
A spokesman for LRCH said: “The dream of the London Resort has been ended by the courts. Natural England fatally wounded the scheme, a single creditor has killed it and, with it, any chance of the UK competing on the envisaged scale of London Resort.”.
The plans, first proposed in 2012, would have been the biggest construction of its kind in Europe since Disneyland Paris in 1992. Masterminds behind the plans had envisioned a park three times larger than the biggest existing park in the UK. However, LRCH faced a series of set-backs, including when the proposed site was declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 2021 by Natural England.
It also faced hefty costs over a contract dispute with Paramount Studios, which would have allowed it to licence the name of popular series such as Star Trek and The Godfather. Earlier funding was also withdrawn from the Kuwaitis over long-running planning delays.
