The world’s first Chinese cultural theme park, complete with its very own China Town commercial retail street is planning to be built on a former open cast coal mine in Rotherham. The project will cost over £100 million, but could be open in 2013.
China Vision Limited, a former Alton Towers boss and a regeneration specialist MCD Developments have been granted the lease by Rotherham Council for a leisure development on the 120 acre site, next to Rother Valley Country Park. A planning application will be submitted later this year and the lease could be granted quickly as plans were already in motion for an undercover leisure complex, but developers pulled out earlier this year. Roger Stone, Labour Leader for Rotherham Council said, “This site has great potential and this proposal offers an exciting, unique and imaginative new attraction which meets our local regeneration aspiration.”
The theme park will be called ‘Visions of China’ and will include: a China Town commercial retail street, a theatre, a temple and cultural centre, children’s fantasy land, giant pagoda, oriental lakes and gardens, oriental spa, restaurants, and rollercoaster rides.
The theme park is promised to be affordable for everyone and could attract over one million visitors each year. However with Alton Towers just over an hour away, do we really need a theme park in this area? Also will the theme park even be a success with previous developments failing to take off in the region such as the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield and The Earth Centre in Doncaster. An unbiased view from Peter Moore, former Marketing Director at Alton Towers and chief Executive of the Visions of China Consortium, thinks it will be, “I believe it will be, no doubt, one of the most exciting projects British tourism will have seen for decades.”
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