Changes afoot at Butlin’s as resort aims to boost capacity
Social-distancing rules due to Covid-19 prompts plans
Anewtheatrecouldsoonreplace a 25-year-old swimming pool at Butlin’s West Sussex resort.
The former swimming pool building had consent to be demolished as part of a 2017 planning application to provide a new £40 million complex, Splash, towards the east of the site.
As part of its plan to welcome back up to 4,500 guests this year, Butlin’s has ‘taken the opportunity to remove the pool’ to create room for a new performance stage (reference BR/292/20/PL).
The holiday resort has also submitted plans for a new reception kiosk and changes to the car park layout (BR/307/20/ PL).
Resort director Jeremy Pardey said: “As part of our strategy for 2021, we are considering social distancing, which will remain important for the foreseeable future.
“We want to get guests numbers up to 4,500, which is still 1,000 below what we operated at peak in 2019.
“We are having to create anothertheatresowecandouble uponourshows,soeveryonegets to see each pantomime and our star names.
“We’ve got a brand new pool which is much better.”
According to planning documents, submitted by Walsingham Planning on behalf of Bourne Leisure, the new, temporary buildings would accommodate a performance stage and audience seating and would be in place for up to three years.
This will enable the resort capacity to be raised from the circa 3,200 figure in the summer of 2020 to circa 4,000 for 2021.
A spokesman said: “Butlins need to make robust plans for 2021 and beyond so that the risk of having to limit operations and disappointmoreguestsnextyear and beyond can be minimised.
“The new temporary buildings must be in place in advance of the early May Bank Holiday. The erection of the buildings is scheduled to take three weeks but this assumes that the site is ready to accept it. This means that there will be site preparation works starting inMarchorassoonasdemolition of the old pool allows.”
Meanwhile, the objective of a new kiosk is to enable cars to be ‘processed faster and take them off the surrounding roads’.
The proposed kiosk is to be locatedintheexistingcarparkon the north side of the Splash pool. It is hoped that this will ‘improve currentcheck-inandregistration at the resort’.
Mr Pardey said the resort’s priorityistoensurethatitremain safesandsecurewhenitreopens.
He said the changes to the car park and registration process will also ‘enable us to stop any traffic problems for the local community’. He added: “The check-in sometimes causes issues with traffic for local residents. We are doubling the capacitysowecandealwithmore cars at a time.
“Wearespeedinguptheroadsfor all those people. It makes it more efficientforourguestswhodon’t have to queue. It’s a win, win.”
Comments can be made on Arun District Council’s planning portal.