The failed attractions that could have transformed Britain

In recent weeks the company behind a proposed new theme park in Kent dubbed “British Disneyland” went into liquidation. The plans were shelved due to a row over funding and quibbles over the protection of a rare jumping spider.

Over the past century we have seen a raft of bold proposals which have promised to lift the UK economy and raise our status as a global tourism powerhouse. Some did indeed come to fruition: the Channel Tunnel, the Eden Project, the Tate Modern, to name a few. Even the Millennium Dome, once a laughing stock, is now a world-renowned music venue.

But an even greater roster of planned infrastructure projects or tourism attractions have fallen by the wayside. Sam Richards, CEO of pro-growth campaign Britain Remade, explains: “It comes down to two things. First, our sclerotic, complex, and unpredictable planning system creates countless opportunities to block or delay projects.

“In some cases, developers ready to invest billions of pounds lose interest after the planning processes drag on for years and new obstacles are thrown up – whether that’s the presence of rare spiders on an industrial estate or the requirement to build a £100m bat tunnel.

“Second, partially because of our broken planning system and bureaucracy, Britain is one of the highest cost countries in the world. New infrastructure from tram lines to nuclear power stations can cost more than five times as much in Britain as in France or Germany. Projects that would have a strong economic case overseas become unviable at British prices.”

From an elevated cycle network above London to a train that would travel faster than 700mph, these are some of the boldest projects that could have transformed the UK, but never quite made it over the line.

The London Resort, nicknamed “British Disneyland” was a proposed theme park set to be located on the Swanscombe Peninsula, on the Thames between Dartford and Gravesend. The scheme was poised to have buy-in from the BBC, ITV and Paramount, with rollercoasters and attractions based on British television and film exports like Top Gear, Paddington Bear and Doctor Who.

Planners said the £3.5bn resort would create tens of thousands of jobs, but after the company behind the London Resort accrued more than £100m in debt, and due to Natural England’s decision to designate the area a Site of Special Scientific Interest (due, in part, to a very rare jumping spider), the plans were scrapped.

The Garden Bridge was first dreamt up by Joanna Lumley in the late 1990s. Her vision was for a pedestrianised, green space in the middle of London, free for all to use. Boris Johnson backed the scheme, and plans progressed to a fairly advanced stage.

By 2017 the Garden Bridge Trust had obtained planning permission to build the bridge between South Bank and Temple station, and had raised £70m of private funding towards the project. By the time Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London, more than £37m of public money had been spent on the project. With a forecast final bill of £200m, Khan pulled the plug in 2017.

The Oxford-Cambridge Arc is a slightly nebulous concept, pitched by the last Conservative government with the aim to turn the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire into a unified “supercluster” region.

Central to this was the opening of a new railway line between Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge to “link communities with employment and leisure opportunities.” The plans met fierce backlash from residents, due, in part, to the damage it could cause to the countryside. There are still conversations ongoing, but in August 2024 the Stop the Arc Group said the plan had “comprehensively failed.”

For many years, politicians have grappled with the notion of a tunnel under Stonehenge – it must be one of the longest-running road-building projects in British history. The A303 which passes close to the Unesco World Heritage Site is often riddled with traffic and – in the era of smart navigational devices – cars are increasingly being rerouted through nearby rural communities.

However, there were serious concerns that the tunnel could damage the structural and archaeological integrity of the area. In July last year, Rachel Reeves announced she had scrapped the Stonehenge Tunnel. Around £160m had already been spent on the project, but with an estimated final bill of £1.7bn, the Chancellor described it as a “low value, unaffordable scheme.”

SkyCycle was an ambitious project which promised a 136-mile network of raised cycle paths above train tracks through the capital. Developers predicted that as many as 400,000 riders would use these futuristic paths during rush hour, accessed via 200 ramps located throughout the city, with a daily toll of £1.

The project had the backing of Network Rail and Transport for London, and Norman Foster + Partners was involved in the design of the cycle ways. However, the then mayor, Boris Johnson, poo-pooed the plans, saying: “It would be fantastically expensive. I don’t actually think as a cyclist it is what the city needs.”

Hyperloop, a futuristic technology previously backed by Richard Branson and Elon Musk, promised to zoom passengers at speeds of up to 700mph in a vacuum tube. It could, in theory, move people at the rapid rate of air transport but at a fraction of the cost, and with a smaller environmental footprint. In 2016, the Hyperloop One Global Challenge sought out the locations for the first ten routes, and two UK connections were selected: Edinburgh to London and Glasgow to Liverpool.

Each would cut travel time to well under an hour. However, the feasibility of the project soon came under scrutiny. Hyperloop would have involved the construction of giant tubes across the countryside and within towns, and they could only be laid out in straight lines (corners, apparently, were problematic). In 2023 the company Hyperloop One shut down.

Britain’s second high-speed railway line (the first, HS1, runs from London to Kent with connections via the Channel Tunnel to the Continent) promised a rapid connection between London, the Midlands and the north of the country. However, in 2023, Rishi Sunak’s Government decided to axe the northern leg, meaning the high-speed connection would only benefit people travelling between London and Birmingham.

The project was plagued with delays, exacerbated by the pandemic, and rising costs. By the time it was scrapped, the original bill of £37.5bn (at 2009 prices) had spiralled a projected final cost of more than £180bn.

People have discussed the feasibility of an airport in the Thames Estuary since the 1940s. In its latest iteration (nicknamed “Boris Island” due to the backing from the then mayor) the idea was that the four-runway airport would negate the need for new runways at Gatwick and Heathrow.

The proposals claimed the new airport would spearhead urban development in East London, while alleviating air traffic in busy residential areas around Gatwick and Heathrow. In the end, the airport was rejected on the grounds that it would cost as much as £100bn – along with other considerations, such as concerns about bird strikes and fog.

Plans for a Channel Tunnel were first drawn up by a French engineer, Albert Mathieu-Favier, who in 1802 presented blueprints to Napoleon Bonaparte which were exhibited in the galleries of Paris. The tunnel would be illuminated by oil lamps, with horse-drawn coaches transporting passengers between the two countries.

Over the years, the idea of a cross-Channel connection took various forms, including the suggestion of a bridge (an idea that Margaret Thatcher was said to be particularly fond of). In the end, the tunnel was the favoured option and the bridge proposals fizzled out. However, while he was foreign secretary, Boris Johnson resurfaced the idea of a 21-mile bridge linking England to France – but these never got off the ground due to the £120bn price tag.