GODFREY SPANNER - SNOASIS - IAN FREEMAN - LEISURE MANAGEMENT

 

The UK's latest Brobdingnagian leisure scheme boasts a bevy of firsts - the world’s first indoor winter sports resort and the UK’s first centre of excellence for winter sport, as well as its first ice museum and 400m ice speed skating track.

 

Developers Onslow Suffolk's managing director Godfrey Spanner is some eight years into creating this mega-project on the 300-acre site of a former quarry in Great Blakenham near Ipswich, Suffolk. Aside of featuring Europe's largest indoor ski slope - 415m long, 70m wide, with a 100m vertical drop to international standard - the sporting aspects of the resort will include a bob-sleigh push-start track, ice climbing wall, cross-country ski-run and skating rink.

 

Off piste, the facilities mix will boast cinemas, a nightclub, 17 bars and restaurants, a tenpin bowl, conference centre and 220,000 square feet of retail. Add an on-site bed-stock of 3,500, split between hotel, apartments and ski lodges, and you're looking at a world-class attraction - "Center Parcs on ice" says Spanner with glee.

 

The Secretary of State is, says Spanner, "minded to grant planning, subject to us dealing with the relocation of the site's wildlife and explaining our carbon footprint plans. She [Hazel Blears] has asked us to be 100% renewable, but I don't think anyone can ever achieve that."

 

Full consent has already been granted for a dedicated railway station which will connect the area to London's Liverpool Street station in 70 minutes. The park's visitors will enjoy discounted train fares and two exclusive carriages on every train.

 

Spanner, a civil engineer by profession, first looked at the site, formerly owned by Blue Circle concrete, in September 2000 and bought it the following March. "I had been involved in the development of Thorpe Park in the mid-70s, so I had leisure experience and this site was clearly suited to leisure" he says.

 

Planning was applied for in 2003. "The planners decided on a destination resort - we almost shut the door there and then, but finally agreed to give it a whirl. Around the same time, we were contacted by two guys who asked if we would sell the quarry for an indoor real-snow centre. They needed a 100 metre drop, so a 50 metre-deep pit is ideal if the building is to look less obtrusive."

 

The people who tracked Spanner down - former Olympic skier Richard Berry and Maurice Shnaps, a South African businessman - agreed a figure for the quarry, which they were subsequently unable to afford. Spanner, by this time keen on their idea, told them to build it anyway and pay him later.

 

"Unfortunately, they couldn't afford to actually build it either" Spanner says, "but, as they didn't have a developer on board, I agreed we would take it forward and they would remain with us as partners - they will operate the snow and we will be landlords. They now say that their dream has become my nightmare!"

 

Spanner is open about the project's funding and confident that he is not on thin ice cost-wise. "Although the price of steel and other products have gone up and we've spent £17 million to date, I'm still comfortable with £350 million" he says. Funds have been raised by a mix of private equity and debt provided by banks including Barclays and RBOS.

 

To meet energy management requirements, Spanner has what he calls a "top-notch" team of engineers masterminding the SnOasis strategy for renewable resources. "Technology has come on immensely" he says, "to the extent that the refrigeration creating the snow may generate enough heat for the hotel, conference centre and apartments.

 

"We need around eight megawatts of power to run the entire development - there's a landfill site next door where the methane is producing 3.5 megawatts of power and we're putting in a wastewood burner which will produce 2.5 megawatts."

 

"We're looking at a quality three- and four-day break market, although day visitors will be very welcome" says Spanner. "Planning restricts us to 850,000 visitors annually, but if we get 600,000 we'll be laughing." The English Tourist Board will have a kiosk on site to inform residential visitors of what is available outside of the park.

 

A 200-bed hostel will form the backbone of a national winter sports academy which will aim to train athletes to Olympic standard. Schools are also seen as a major target market - "they can bring the children here, into a safe environment, 12 months a year" says Spanner.

 

With this kind of facility, a sometimes thorny subject can be how welcome locals are. "My philosophy" Spanner says, "was to give all winter sports one centre of focus and I know the public will thoroughly enjoy being a part of that.

 

"For the last five years I've been promising the people of Suffolk that they will have a priority that will give them a discount. We have a planning condition which means that we have to charge people to enter the park. That will be around £3.00 and we intend to give that charge back to local people in some form, as we want them to be part of what we do."

 

On-site accommodation will also include 350 ski chalets and 100 for-sale or time-share apartments for people who want a semi-permanent base at SnOasis. Spanner is keeping his powder dry with regard to operators for the major facilities, but admits to be in discussion with "several chains" for the 350 room, four-star hotel. It is hoped that the hotel operator will run the health & fitness club and spa, and take care of housekeeping for the chalets and apartments.

 

Local operators will run the 4-screen cinema and possibly also the 20-lane tenpin bowl, with bars and restaurants leased to various national and local operators. Local planners have put a block on the retail area housing the big high-street names to avoid competing with Ipswich town centre, although Tesco has already expressed interest in the convenience store for self-caterers. There will be 3,400 car park spaces on site and SnOasis will be able to handle up to 12,000 visitors at any one time.

 

SnOasis will provide employment for 3,400 people during the construction period and 2,000 jobs on the ground following opening, equating to 1,800 full-time equivalent. "We will need IT people, senior security people, medics, fitness experts and ski instructors as well as base staff" says Spanner, as he attempts to allay local fears that all jobs will be lowly paid and unskilled.

 

Indeed, as with any project of this enormity, SnOasis has its naysayers. In some local quarters, response to Spanner's plans has been, to say the least, chilly. Action group SnOasis Concern has been fighting a concerted battle since the project's inception on the grounds of destruction of local wildlife and the environment, and traffic and visual impact.

 

Keith Willetts, its chair, says "The main issue for the developers will be raising finance, as the business case is hopelessly uneconomic and conditions are worsening. We doubt if the scheme as proposed will ever be built and we are considering a judicial review should planning consent be granted."

 

"We would not have continued to fund the project to the extent that we have if there was the slightest doubt of our ability to continue" Spanner counters, "and our banks are very much behind us. The short- break market is still showing the only growth in the industry. Real-snow facilities are being built all over the world and we have the backing of every significant body in the numerous sports we are embracing."

Spanner claims that concerns about traffic impact are unfounded. "Our traffic consultants have assured the Highways Agency and Suffolk County Council that traffic management was sufficient and would survive for 20 years and, as well as the railway station, we'll be running buses from Ipswich.

 

"Planning restricts visitor numbers to 800,000 annually and we can manage visiting times and numbers by internet booking. Footfall management is uppermost in our minds - for example, the snow will only be open to the British ski team and other experts between 5.30am and 9.00am, which means that day visitors won't travel in the morning peak."

 

Spanner is equally on top of the other main objection, environmental effect. "The site is by no means a place of beauty, as some claim" he says, wryly, "but we do have newts, badgers and a 10,000-bat rookery close by. The newts will take a season and a half to relocate to a 49-acre area we have created, which will also house grass-snakes and badgers - the bats will not be disturbed. And I feel the building itself is iconic and there will be no light emission."

 

The time frame for completion is, quite naturally, fluid, but subject to planning consent Spanner is looking at a 30-month build programme. "I'm hoping we'll be open before the 2012 Olympics, as we'll have 3,500 beds on site and the rail journey to the Olympic Village will only take 50 minutes" he says.

 

A seasoned developer with four decades of commercial ventures across the UK, Spain and France under his belt, Spanner says "I haven't left anything behind that I'm not proud of". I get the feeling he doesn't intend to start now.

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