There are a few rumours floating our way at the moment concerning the Beckton "London Snow World". We have an excellent source close to the development, who assures us that all is moving forward to the latest schedule - a planned opening for July 2003.

As you'll be aware, we have rumours of many, many indoor ski halls for the UK and the odds are that the vast majority of these will not even get to the planning stage, let alone construction. The London Snow World will not be one of these and the construction of the slope is effectively complete. The next stage is to start constructing the building to sit on the slope. At the site, they appear to be between these two phases, with the place pretty much deserted.

The main investors behind the project include a Swiss skiing operation and Ellis-Brigham. These are not property developers looking to replace cinemas with snow hills in order to attract consumers to retail developments or to push through planning permission. Instead, they are people involved in the ski industry and looking to promote skiing and snowboarding in the UK. With many similar projects in the UK and around the world, the developers have found that with the new busines of indoor ski hills, venture financing has not been as straight forward as they'd originally hoped.

So ignore any rumours. The facts are that it's been a little tougher than they expected, but the London Snow World should be with us in little over a year.

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