Camelot in line for redevelopment after closure

THE closure of the Camelot theme park in Lancashire has cleared the way for the redevelopment of the site.

Knights Leisure, which has been running the park since 2009, has already closed Camelot, based at Charnock Richard, for the winter but said it will not re-open in the spring.

It blamed poor summer weather, the Jubilee and the Olympics for the downturn in trade. Around 12 staff will lost their jobs. The park employs a further 180-200 seasonal workers during the summer.

The 140-acre site is owned by Carlisle-based builder Story Construction which acquired the land in 2009 when the previous park owner, Prime Resorts, went into receivership.

Some former Prime Resorts managers, including Knights’ managing director Roy Page, set up Knights in partnership with Story, to reopen the park as an attraction. But Mr Page said they had made the “difficult” decision to close because it no longer made financial sense to continue.

“It’s the culmination of a number of things,” he said. “We’ve had the wettest summer for 100 years mainly during the peak of our business in the school holidays. The Jubilee in the early past of the year affected our schools and groups business, the the TV coverage of the Olympics had a massive impact on trading.

“Our numbers during the two weeks of the Olympics were the worst trading we’ve seen in July and August.

Prime Resorts had a redevelopment plan and had attempted to sell the site to a housebuilder before it failed. Mr Page said Story had similar ideas for, “a mixed-use development of business, commercial, residential and hopefully some form of entertainment”.

Fred Story, chief executive of Story Homes, said: “We will continue to attempt to work with the council to find a sustainable and viable future for this important site.”

He added: “The management team at Camelot Theme Park have done an exceptional job in keeping the park going as long as they have in very challenging economic circumstances. The British weather as well as other factors have conspired to make their task impossible and they had few options but to close the park.”

No planning application has yet been submitted to the local authority, Chorley Borough Council.