This abandoned theme park is being turned into a glam holiday resort

Usually, when you hear the words ‘abandoned theme park’, it’s in the context of a horror movie. Some kids have jumped the fence at night, there’s a broken ride creaking in the background and something scary is about to happen. Well, not in the case of one abandoned fairground in Lincolnshire. 

Instead, the derelict Pleasure Island park in Cleethorpes, which closed in 2016, is about to be transformed into a new resort and holiday centre which its developers have dubbed ‘Center Parcs-by-the-sea’. 

A consortium of developers plans to tear down what remains of the adventure park, including rides which have been left to rot for a decade, and replace it with a £70 million resort complex. The vision for the 60-acre site includes 272 holiday lodges, a drive-through coffee shop and a cycle-hire building, as well as a Lidl superstore.

Two hotels are also included in the plans, one with 58 rooms and another with 148 rooms, both of which are due to be five-storeys high.

Plus, the lake at the centre of the site is set to get a new angler hub for fishing enthusiasts alongside new toilets, lockers and changing facilities for anyone looking to bait some hooks.

An application to transform the theme park was first submitted in January 2023, but objections have delayed plans. In November 2023 Natural England raised questions about the potential effect the development would have on the Humber Estuary Special Protection Area, which supports a range of bird species. In 2024, the Environment Agency objected to amendments to the plans, which included building a new bridge over the Buck Beck, saying they risked restricting essential maintenance and emergency access to flood defences and threatened to restrict flow in the main river. Lidl rivals Tesco and Aldi also submitted objections, alongside local residents.

But a lengthy report into the planning permission application gave the project the green light. Now, plans have been recommended for approval by council officers, who said the development would revive the site which is currently a ‘derelict’ eyesore.

A timeline for construction of the new resort hasn’t been revealed yet.

Did you see that two grain silos in Suffolk have been transformed into holiday rentals?

Plus: this new £50 million UK karting attraction will be the first of its kind in Europe.