Business owners living in the shadow of now defeated plans for a multi-billion pound theme park say they have been “shafted and paralysed” for the past 12 years.
Plans for a sprawling entertainment park on the Swanscombe Peninsula in north Kent, dubbed the “Dartford Disneyland”, were meant to be bring excitement, joy and create tens of thousands of jobs.
But for hundreds of people it instead resulted in anxiety, uncertainty and a huge bill.
Traders on the Northfleet and Swanscombe industrial estates earmarked for the plans breathed a small sigh of relief on Monday (January 20) after it was revealed by KentOnline a High Court judge had ordered the company behind the project – London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) – into liquidation.
The £2.5billion proposed park – set to feature rides, restaurants and plush hotels – was first proposed in 2012.
But, after locking horns with entertainment giant Paramount – which pulled its earlier involvement with the project and alleged its bosses had broken their agreement – its legal pressure has now brought the curtain down on the scheme.
The London Resort had been designated a NSIP – a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project. To proceed, it needed to secure what’s known as a Development Consent Order (DCO) from the government, bypassing local planners in the process.
But just a day before plans were due to be presented before planners, in March 2022, London Resort dramatically withdrew the proposals, at the 11th hour citing environmental and transport issues.
LRCH had limped on ever since – regularly promising to resubmit its plans – but with no real progress made.
The NSIP status – which is listed on the Planning Inspectorate website as applying to LRCH – is likely to die with the company, lifting the cloud of uncertainty which has hung over businesses on the peninsula in recent years.
However, the controversial saga has left a lasting mark on the existing business owners trading on the estates where part of the park was due to be built
Douglas Hilton, chairman of the Peninsula Management Group (PMG), which was set up to represent more than 140 affected businesses, and land owner affected by the London Resort saga, said: “It has affected us. It’s cost us more than two million pounds. We’ve been shafted since 2012.”
Mr Hilton, who was planning to retire before the LRCH project was announced more than a decade ago, said the threat of a Development Consent Order (DCO) meant businesses’ plans to expand were “paralysed” over fears they could be given as little as three months to move at any moment.
He added: “Compulsory purchases are legalised theft. It’s extremely detrimental to the people who have businesses here and don’t have any alternative accommodation.
“These purchases would have paid for you to move to a new premises but they don’t pay for the hike in rent you’ll be paying.”
Mr Hilton said when LRCH were planning on going for DCOs, it became a nightmare to rent their business units – estimating he lost a “couple of million” in rent – as nobody wanted to pay for something where the future was so uncertain.
“The amount of rent we could charge was below the industry standard,” he added. “We’ve had to limp along. There’s been a whole load of lies and misrepresentation.
“I came down to Kent with the plan to redevelop our land in Northfleet and improve it to leave myself with a nice set of brand new units to let out and that would see me out, but I had to put those on hold.
“I’ve only just been able to put planning permission in for the plans before Christmas. It’s been a huge load and should’ve been done 12 years ago.”
Everyone was so excited and had stars in their eyes about money pouring through the door
The 72-year-old landowner said the whole estate had “been blighted” and business plans “thrashed completely” for those who wanted to expand.
Speaking about the London Resort project, he said: “Everyone was so excited and had stars in their eyes about money pouring through the door.”
And Mr Hilton said the site’s NSIP status means himself and other people on the estate still have fears over their future.
He added: “As far as I’m concerned it’s paralysed everything I want to do down there for the last 12 years. At 70 years, they’ve cost me millions. I don’t care about money particularly but what I care about is the affect they’ve had on other businesses – it’s been crippling.
“I’ve fought for others who can’t fight for themselves. They couldn’t have messed it up more if they tried.”
Michael Bristow has run Michael’s Bridal Fabrics on the Northfleet site for the past 20 years.
The 69-year-old, from Dartford, bought his shop building the day before the multi-billion-pound scheme was revealed.
“I always tell people there’s three elephants in the room – Covid, Brexit and the London Resort,” he said. “You can cope with one elephant a day but when you have three in the office it’s a difficult time.
“There’s been so much uncertainty over the past 12 years and we’ve had so much to contend with.
“It’s something in the end you kind of learn to live with because you don’t have a choice. The story first broke on the day after I signed my contract and I thought to myself this is either going to be a disaster or it will be very good.
“I don’t think they ever had the money to do what they needed to do. It was something which was always overhyped in terms of the jobs it would create and a lot of their facts or figures just didn’t seem true or right.
“I always say it was like people building a house. It struck me as people choosing the curtains and furniture before they worked out where the foundations were gonna go. It was being run by people who didn’t really know what they were doing. It just felt amateur-ish.”
This has been like some massive April Fools day which lasted for 12 years
Mr Bristow, who started his business 29 years ago, said he grew increasingly concerned over the lack of dialogue as time went on.
“They never admitted things weren’t going to plan,” he explained. “It was always someone being over-optimistic saying there’s not a problem. They almost remind me a little bit of Donald Trump saying the first thing which came into their head but without the facts to back it up.”
Mr Bristow admitted he offered to be one of the first to move his business off the estate if he was given a reasonable price and a new location for his business was found.
But no offer was made.
He added: “I asked what was happening in terms of finding other businesses somewhere to go but they had no answers. It was almost irrelevant to offer money for these properties if they have no where to go.”
Years of waiting around led to Mr Bristow putting a halt to any improvements he wanted to make at his shop, including re-tarmacking the car park and putting new fencing up.
“We had the plans but it dragged on so much you think ‘oh maybe once this is sorted out we’ll do it’, but then you think the journey will never end,” he added.
“It still hasn’t ended until the NSIP is lifted as someone else could come in and we’ll have to move on.
“This has been like some massive April Fools day which lasted for 12 years.
“Some of it was just so hard to believe. It’s okay to draw all these wonderful pictures but you don’t see anything happening. You never knew if it would develop to something so it just caused so much uncertainty.”
Dan Bramwell, who had fought for the businesses on behalf of PMG, blasted the project as a “fiasco since day one” and questioned the process by which it was awarded it special NSIP planning designation.
“It should never have been allowed to progress past the first hurdle when LRCH described the 40 acres of industrial estates as mainly redundant land,” he said.
“Nothing could have been further from the truth but it united the 140 plus businesses and more than 2,000 employees to fight tooth and nail for survival.”
“If presented accurately any government minister would have been hard pressed to allow the special NSIP planning designation.”
He said the businesses had “worked hard to establish a rapport” with the theme park bosses and even suggested proposals to integrate many of the existing businesses with the Resort’s backroom operations – but had been ignored.
He is now calling on the government to rescind the NSIP designation and bringing an end to what otherwise he warned “could be an indefinite saga”.
Initially warmly welcomed – with enthusiasm further stoked by a host of exciting computer generated images as to how the park would look – repeated delays saw that slowly turn to pessimism.
It suffered a host of setbacks – most significantly when the 372-acre site it intended to build on was declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 2021 by Natural England.
That decision was made after environmental campaigners fought against the plans.
It delivered, say those close to the project, a “mortal blow” to the scheme.
The judge’s decision on Friday coincided with the Planning Inspectorate awarding legal costs to a host of companies which had conducted work ahead of the DCO bid, before it was shelved, due to LRCH’s “unreasonable behaviour”.
It said the withdrawal of the DCO was made “without sound reason, and exceptional circumstances have not been demonstrated”.
These included the likes of the Kent Wildlife Trust, Bugslife, National Highways, Network Rail and a joint submission by Kent County Council, Dartford council and Ebbsfleet Development Corporation.
Jamie Robins had fought for many years to protest the Swanscombe Marshes through his work with the conservation charity Buglife.
He said: “We’re delighted to have confirmation that the London Resort theme park is dead in the water – it’s another step to securing the future for the amazing wildlife at the Swanscombe Peninsula.
“For over a decade the threat of the London Resort has hung over the Peninsula’s wildlife and local community, even when it became clear that it was one of the most important places in the South East for wildlife.
“Together with Kent Wildlife Trust, CPRE Kent, RSPB and the Save Swanscombe Peninsula community group we’ve been working tirelessly in recent years to protect the site, calling for it to be a Site of Special Scientific Interest, writing to the Secretary of State and producing a Vision for the site as a nature reserve.”
But he added the awarding of costs was “a drop in the ocean” and his organisation, like the many others involved, have doubts as to whether they will ever get the funds spent back.
He added: “Hopefully this is the final nail in the coffin that will persuade the government to withdraw the NSIP status and hand decisions over the site’s future back to local decision makers.”
This serves as a powerful reminder: nature cannot simply be brushed aside
Nicky Britton-Williams, of Kent Wildlife Trust, added: ““This outcome has been a long time coming, achieved through the relentless efforts of local campaigners and the united action of wildlife charities.
“The failure to properly account for the importance of the SSSI, along with unresolved transport issues, led the Planning Inspector to rule that LRCH acted unreasonably throughout the process, causing unnecessary expenses for us and other consultees.
“As a charity with limited resources to address threats to wildlife across Kent, we welcome the opportunity to recover these wasted resources.
“While we remain cautious about whether we will successfully receive the awarded funds, we are hopeful that this serves as a powerful reminder: nature cannot simply be brushed aside. Let this stand as a testament to the importance of protecting our wild places for generations to come.”
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.”
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