The UK is going to get its own giant £3.5bn Disneyland-style theme park
Not gonna lie, this looks amazing
Alton Towers. Chessington World of Adventures. Thorpe Park. Diggerland. Sleep with one eye open tonight because there’s a new big bastard in town and he’s coming to get you.
A theme park which has been dubbed the ‘UK Disneyland’ is set to open by 2022, according to the bosses of the project.
Set to be built in Dartford, Kent, it will cost £3.5bn, include 50 attractions and rides, a 2,000-seat theatre, and you’ll even be able to get there by boat from London.
Instead of Disney, the park will be built around the intellectual property of movie giant Paramount – responsible for the likes of Titanic (although we’d be surprised to see a ride based on that), Forrest Gump, Indiana Jones, Shrek and Interstellar – and it’s also expected that there will be some rides inspired by productions from the BBC and Aardman (Wallace and Gromit and the rest).
A day ticket is estimated to cost £57, although quite how they know that when they haven’t laid a brick yet is beyond us.
The company behind it, London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) recently appointed a whole host of senior staff to get the project going and are confident that their development consent order will be approved by the government in November. If it is, building work will begin in 2019 on the Swanscombe Peninsula.
In addition to the rides and theatre – featured in areas including a ‘cartoon circus, Starfleet Command, Action Square, Port Paramount and Entertainment City’ - there are plans for a nightclub, hotels and, of course, retail and food outlets, although with Bluewater round the corner we’re not sure Dartford really needs any more shops.
40,000 visitors per day are expected, and we’ll definitely be among them, queueing for the log flume (there’ll be a log flume, right? There’s always a log flume) when it’s open.
You can take a look at more artist impression images of the attraction below.
