We've now seen a copy of the Snow World insolvency notice (PDF format), so it looks like it's all officially down the pan. Whether anything will rise out of the ashes remains to be seen.

We've also found out what the "good news" we were promised for early 2003 was. It seems the developers had changed their estimate for the amount of parking required and had applied to have their plans for a 360 place multi-storey car park replaced with a part open and part covered car park for 197 places. It looked like the Council would have granted the changes early in 2003.

[From info supplied by Simon Abel] who goes on to say:

There might still be hope that the project will get restarted but re-financing will be required, Technically the company is under administration (a la Leicester City Football Club) and administration can be used to protect the company from creditors seeking repayment of debts and allow it to re-structure its finances.

"An administration order is an order made by a court to administer the management of a company that is (or is likely to become) insolvent, or to administer the payment of debts by an individual.
For a company, an administration order follows a petition by a company, its directors or a creditor. A court must be persuaded that it is better to keep the company in administration rather than liquidate it. The purpose of an order is to keep the company's business going, allowing some time for its reorganisation and for the best use of its assets. Once under an order, the company is protected from creditors, who cannot influence the running of the business or recover any assets without the permission of the court.
An administration may result in the company becoming solvent and returning to the control of its directors, or in its liquidation."

Let's hope this is what is going on rather than the first steps to liquidation. Unfortunately we can only guess what is going on rather than knowing what the full story is until the company/developers come out with something definitive.

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