 Poster: A snowHead
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The latest snowdome/leisure complex project, this time in Suffolk, on the site of an old cement works near Ipswich.
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| If approved, the development will include the largest indoor championship ski slope in the world, an outside toboggan run, an ice skating rink, a conference centre, a hotel and a cinema. |
Don't think the 3V and Val etc will be getting too worried about losing out to the competition.... 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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disgraceful, these areas should be left for the people who permanently live there.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Some guy on another forum posted the plans and a sketch of the place..........looked very impressive. Why out in Ipswich though? Surely something is needed a little further down south?
I thought the plans were a lot further ahead than this, didn't realise that they were only just submitting for planning applications.
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Here's some more info. (pdf file) from from Onslow Investments, who are behind the scheme. There's a visual impression of the finished project on page 2.
The money involved is so huge that one wonders if this can really happen. The Tokyo Ski Dome, which was by far the biggest project of this type (although built above ground, rather than sunk into it), and had two quad chairlifts and a travelator, is now dust.
Will the punters visit a facility of this type frequently enough - particularly when skiing is usually off the agenda in summer - to produce the necessary revenues?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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the project is not just a snowdome though, they are linking in hotel, golf courses etc so hopefully when one is not making so much the other areas hopefully will. Also, if it does become a British base then obviously this will bring in a lot of garenteed money - especially if results in better atheletes and results!
This same company tried to do this (I think) in Shoreham, Brighton a few years ago on a old cement works. The local councils rejected the idea and so a great big ugly hole still lies in the ground & everything else that goes with a redundant cement works. I admit that I like the idea of having it here almost on the doorstep, but not knowing the whole story/environmental impact i'm not sure if it was a good decision or not.
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The slope data is interesting. A proposed 100m vertical over a 500m length slope. Tokyo was quite pacy with an 80m vertical over a similar length, though it had a massive flat run-out. I only visited it on its opening day, and was told that it mogulled later, which is not really what you want in that kind of facility.
Achieving a competition slope, and balancing that with the needs of bread-and-butter intermediate skiers is a tricky challenge. Conversely, some indoor slopes have been built far too flat - I looked at quite an expensively-built slope in Holland a few years back which looked incredibly boring to ski.
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Whilst one has to applaud a project like this and wish for it's success, I do wonder whether the location is ideal. Suffolk is hardly a heavily populated area and getting there from other major conerbation areas doesn't seem particularly easy. It would be a shame to get something like this off the ground, raise expectations and then see it fail owing to geographic location.
The problem as always, I suppose is weighing land costs up with location. Ideally something like this needs to be on the edge of a major city with good transport links. Unfortunately the cost of land would make this type of project prohibitive, I imagine.
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Very good point. London has no snowdome, almost certainly for the land cost reason (Beckton's foundations were laid, but that doesn't quite amount to a snowdome). We now have them near Leeds and Birmingham, and in Milton Keynes. Tokyo Ski Dome, from memory, was about a 40-minute rail ride from the city centre, but failed.
Certainly, if Londoners can't reach the Suffolk site with an easy drive (I can't imagine the majority would want to drive for much more than an hour) then it simply won't do the business.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| David Goldsmith wrote: |
| Tokyo Ski Dome, from memory, was about a 40-minute rail ride from the city centre, but failed |
Failed? Please explain. A quick google search suggests it is still going.
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I live in north London, quite close (about 15-20 minutes) to the M1. Milton Keynes Xscape is a bit over an hours drive for me. Suffolk would be much further and it would be even worse for someone in central, west or south London.
I might go once or twice for the experience but not regularly (and I'm a ski fanatic by most standards).
Meanwhile the Beckton site sits derelict with just the foundations built for a 200 metre slope with shops etc.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Which site did you look at, Jonpim? My understanding is that the facility closed last September and is being razed to the ground (maybe already done) to build an Ikea.
It would be nice to see a memorial website to the place, which was magnificent (not least in terms of a business risk). The opening ceremony was one of the more extraordinary things I've witnessed, with laser beams, huge projected images and big music. The snow was used as a massive projection screen.
It all happened on the Tokyo property bubble, which burst at the very time the place opened.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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David Goldsmith, you are of course right.
But just goes to show two problems with the internet and search engines:
1. You must use the right words in the right way.
2. Many (most?) internet pages are not edited, but just languish out of date.
If you search Google with Tokyo snow dome, a couple of sites mention the dome, but none say it is closed.
If you search with "Tokyo ski dome" none of the ten sites mention it has closed.
Indeed Dragons Roar announces "The Tokyo Ski Dome - 300 feet tall and 30 lanes wide of downhill skiing in July. Reservations are now being taken for the year 2023"!
And one of the ten sites links to snowHeads: Paul S on Wed Apr 21 listed the dome in What resorts have we all been to?.
To find the right info you have to remove the quote marks and enter Tokyo ski dome. Interestingly, the Goski page that informs us the dome is Closed is the page before the link you get to when entering Tokyo snow dome
If anyone wants it, SSAWS.com is now up for sale.
(Spring Summer Autumn Winter Snow)
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You know it makes sense.
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When I visited Tokyo to see it open (July 1994, from memory) the Japanese skiing boom was on overdrive. The city was baking hot and steamy, but there was a whole street of ski shops selling equipment to all the fanatics. The SSAWS building itself was like an airport terminal (vast, with thousands of lockers, equipment showrooms, fitness suite, etc. The ski rental was an enormous counter). Then you went through a linking passage to the snow slope, accessed through big banks of automatic glass doors. Walking on to the snow was like looking up at the bottom half of a mountain. Quite breathtaking.
The closure of SSAWS results from a huge contraction of the sport in Japan, sadly.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Quote: |
The closure of SSAWS results from a huge contraction of the sport in Japan, sadly.
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They discovered mobile phones instead ! The Japanese are great ones for jumping on a fashionable craze and hopping off equally fast after a time. Flock of sheep mentality. (I work for a Japanese company and after 16 years I still don't pretend to understand them)
If a snowdome near to Tokyo failed, I honestly cannot see one in darkest Ipswich being a commercial success. We were musing elsewhere in the forum about the number of Brit skiing holidays and how the stats were assembled ? Some of these dome developers must have some wildly optimistic market research or seriously pink spectacles.......
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Poster: A snowHead
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now then boys stop having a go at Ipswich. The town is easily linked from London by the A12 , the West by the A14. North is Norwich and we don't want any links with them (I like the 1st division!).
Its good for suffolk and only 30 mins from my house (yippeeeee!)
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Maybe we should open some kind of betting on snowdome plans coming to fruition 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Weren't they going to build a snow dome near Manchester too?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Hey Vicky, Welcome to snowHeads
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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kuwait_ian, the one in dubai is nuts, the shear scale is enormous. With the temperature difference between the inside & outside, the energy required to keep it cold must be horrific? Just another way to speed up global warming? 
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Dan, I tend to agree with you it's nuts but not because of the temperature problem. Insulation is wonderful stuff. If it's properly designed (and I'm sure it will be) the additional contribution to global warming from this development (the snow part only) will be miniscule in comparison with all the energy expended on airconditioning absolutely everything else in the place. The aluminium smelter is the worst polluter in Dubai by far and unfortunately that is being expanded. Some criticise the irrigated international golf courses but you have to do something with the treated sewage effluent so you may as well make the desert green. The whole place is ultimately unsustainable in environmental terms. I happen to think what Dubai is doing in recent years is from the Kenny Everett school of over the topness and not in the best possible taste. But few rulers will admit their country is heading for oblivion and Dubai's see tourism as vital for survival of the city. We cannot realistically expect residents to return to barasti huts on the beach (which were common summer dwellings even into the 50s & 60s).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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More on snowdomes, focusing on the Snoasis project in Suffolk, from today's Finanacial Times.
And the plans for the £350 million scheme go on show in Great Blakenham, location of the project, today. This report from today's East Anglian Daily Times.
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I'm no expert, but this scheme seems to be overburdened by the cost. £350m is a huge sum, and I wonder whether there are enough people willing to shell out on not only the cost of skiing and other activities, but also the accommodation. I can't see that the usage from day trippers will be sufficient bearing in mind the geographic location. I'm sure initially there will be plenty of interest, but I find it hard to see that interest holding up to sustain the enterprise.
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You know it makes sense.
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£350m is gobsmackingly large. A company expecting a 10% return on investment would need to make £100,000 profit before interest every day of the year. At a profit margin of 50% (generous), each of the annual 250,000 visitors would need to spend an average of £280 per head on accommodation, tuition, passes, etc.
Most day trippers would wince at spending more than £30. That leaves everyone else shelling out £400 or more. At £2,000 for a family of four, why not go to the Alps?
You won't catch me putting money into this particular black hole. See you in Tignes instead.
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FAQ
