£200m leisure resort planned for Northumberland
by Tom Walker | 20 Feb 2009
New revised plans have been announced to build a £200m tourism and leisure attraction on the site of three former mines in Northumberland.
According to Widdrington Regeneration Partnership (WRP), the joint venture behind the scheme, the development will now include a holiday village with chalet accommodation, an indoor leisure complex with a 50m swimming pool, a man-made sailing lake, a 150-room luxury hotel, a health spa and a championship golf course.
Other facilities planned include an indoor and outdoor adventure centre and a heritage visitor centre.
Plans for the attraction were first unveiled in 2003, as part of a larger regeneration scheme for the opencast mine sites of Stobswood, Maidens Hall and Steadsburn.
WRP secured £80,000 in funding from a number of partners – including the European Regional Development Fund and the Northumberland Strategic Partnership – towards a feasibility study to be undertaken in 2005. The study, completed by KPMG, suggested that initial plans to include a 500m indoor skiing venue would be unsustainable. The new plans, unveiled this month, are based on the KPMG recommendations.
The project has been given the working name of Blue Sky Forest, and WRP hopes to start construction on the site within the next two years.
The sites are currently owned by UK Coal, which contributed to the funding of the feasibility study.
New revised plans have been announced to build a £200m tourism and leisure attraction on the site of three former mines in Northumberland. According to Widdrington Regeneration Partnership (WRP), the joint venture behind the scheme, the development will now include a holiday village with chalet accommodation, an indoor leisure complex with a 50m swimming pool, a man-made sailing lake, a 150-room luxury hotel, a health spa and a championship golf
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