When you hear ‘UK Disneyland’, it’s hard to imagine anything other than a Thorpe Park-esque theme park with sad Mickey Mouse faces dripping with rain.
But it’s looking to be good, and they’re looking to pump £3.5 billion into the Paramount theme park, dubbed the ‘UK’s Disneyland’.
The theme park is set to open in Kent in 2022 and will have around 50 rides based on Paramount films and BBC shows.
Paramount PicturesThe huge park could attract up to 40,000 visitors a day and will be built in Dartford.
Paramount make Hollywood films like Zoolander, Anchorman, and Mission Impossible, so the theme park could take on a slightly more adult feel than Disney’s theme parks.
News site Kent Live has reported that the plans for the project will be sent to the Government for approval in November and the company is confident that they will be approved.
Paramount PicturesAs well as Paramount film-inspired rides, the park will take ideas from the BBC and Aardman Animations, who mad Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep.
Humphrey Percy, group CEO of the project’s parent company Kuwaiti European Holdings, told Kent Live:
We’re working with world class theme park design companies to make sure that we have a real attraction. I’m talking about companies that have their headquarters in California and support the major film studios and attractions across the world.
We are working with the railways to make sure there’s sufficient capacity. We’re also considering having a boat from central London or Greenwich which will all be part of the attraction.
We have the financial backing to take us all the way through that process.
We will make sure that this experience is for the whole family. It’s going to be a very amazing and exciting thing for them.
Developers say that the 872-acre tourist destination will generate around 33,000 jobs.
As well as 50 rides, there is also a plan for a 2,000-seat theatre, hotels, and an exhibition space, complete with several restaurants and a nightclub.
It is thought that the cost of a day ticket will be £57 and there are plans to include the cost of public transport from central London in this, to encourage people to leave their cars at home.
