 Poster: A snowHead
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[This thread updated and re-titled, due to unveiling of plans on 7 September - scroll down for link]
Plans to transform Hemel Hempstead plastic ski slope into a snowdome will be revealed to the public on 13 September.
Architects' drawings and traffic plans will feature in an exhibition for local residents' feedback, before a planning application is made.
This report from Hemel Today.
Do you ski Hemel? Would you ski a snowdome at that location?
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Wed 7-09-05 13:49; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Isn't that a bit close to Milton Keynes? I wouldn't have thought it would have been economically viable.
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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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I would imagine that being so close it will impact on the running of Xscape at MK. As it will be closer to London and the south it will probably draw that contingent.
It would be nice to have something south of the river Thames - why do all of the snowdomes have to be so far up north?
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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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Ray Zorro, They are all down south for me
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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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David Goldsmith, I don't ski there, but I work a few minutes from the slope...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Wear The Fox Hat,
If the cap fit's..........
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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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I'd rather wear a helmet... 
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I had my first ever ski lessons on Hemel dry slope..... but once I'd experienced real snow I never went back. I would definitely use an indoor snow slope there, rather than drive up to MK. I suspect most skiers in N London would too - it would steal a v large proportion of MK's clientele. There is already a large S&R store there, so no doubt they are all in favour, as it would steal sales from EllisB at MK.
MK does have a large number of snowsports retail outlets in the same Xscape building, which the Hemel development may struggle to match, but for those simply wanting to ski/board its location is much better.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Plans for the Hemel snowdome were unveiled today. Here's an updated report from Hemel Today, unfortunately with very little additional detail and no architect's impression. Hopefully we can link to something shortly.
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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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I live very close to Hemel but would only use it if it cost less. The cost of an hours skiing at Milton Keynes is the major barrier to me, not the distance to drive.
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Don't get your hopes up nightshift:- as the new slope will be closer to the main source of revenue (i.e. Greater London) I can't see that they will need to undercut MK to make a success of it. The competition could drive prices down at MK tho, which is no bad thing.
This all assumes they will do the job properly and produce something as good as (if not better than) what Xscape has to offer!
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You know it makes sense.
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Great news for me, unless the Hemel Chav Scum take a liking to skiing - do Burberry do salopettes?
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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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Picked up a copy of The Hemel Hempstead Gazette this evening. Undoubtedly the first and last time I'll ever buy the paper (!) but the front page is a big splash, headlined:
"Snow place like £8m ski dome"
The main slope is planned to be 150m x 32m
Nursery slope: 70m x 32m
It could open between winter 2007 and summer 2008, with the planning application to be lodged by the end of this year.
The existing plastic slope at Hemel was opened in 1978, and this would be the first major redevelopment since then. The existing building would be replaced with a three-storey clubhouse featuring cafe/bar, conference facilities, viewing balcony, changing rooms, ski hire and a new Snow+Rock shop.
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Poster: A snowHead
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If it does get built I hope that a bit of competition with Xscape drives down prices. The only thing from stopping me use an indoor slope on a regular basis throughout the year is the absurd cost of skiing at them.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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Will see if I can get the MD of Hemel Ski Centre, David Surrey, to register as a snowHead. Then he might like to tell us more about his plans.
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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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rob@rar.org.uk, you could join the ski club at the slope. That leads to a much more reasonable price for usage.
For example the Lions club at Leeds/Castleford get charged £7.50 per member per hour. They put an admin fee on top and charge members £16 for their two hour sessions. Any tuition on top is free of charge.
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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.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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rob@rar.org.uk, Plastic (snow), much cheaper!
How can anyone refer to somewhere north of London as being in the South East????? 
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rob@rar.org.uk, if you DID ski that much at an indoor slope it WOULD add up to the cost of a couple of trips to the alps.....
......but who would want to spend 2 hours EVERY week all summer doing that? No-one I know would want to hammer down the same slope over & over again every week. The vast majority of indoor snow users don't do anything like that amount - personally, I only go about 5 or 6 times a year, and wouldn't go any more often no matter how cheap it became (not that a drop in price wouldn't be welcome!).
In a perfect world we would all have a local indoor snozone which cost 10p/hour to use and had different terrain every time we went back, but that ain't the real world. In the real world people don't invest in building leisure facilities unless they have some prospect of getting their money back, and unf that means charging people lots of money to use them. 
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the ice perv, sure, I understand what you're saying, but in my opinion the real value of a snowdome facility is using it weekly during the summer, so you can actually use it to train and improve rather than simply as a recreational facility. That's when it gets expensive.
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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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the ice perv, but with the ski clubs operating at the snowdomes that's exactly what happens. The club at Castleford have two hour sessions on Sunday morning and Monday evening and more than one or two of them use both sessions.
However both sessions have gates up, and sometimes bumps. They run drills, general ski tuition and a bit of race training as well. It does make that same slope a little more interesting as you try to ski it on one ski, bent double, jump turn it, slow snowplough it, jump up and down as you run down it, 1000 steps it as well as getting to wack the poles. Well worth a try.
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Okay, fair enough, there are some who want to use it more often. Personally, the better I get, the quicker I get bored there, but that is me.
But my point is that these places just wouldn't exist without being able to charge "expensive" or "absurd" rates becoz they would never be viable as a business proposition otherwise. Hopefully the new Hemel development will offer "season tickets" to those who have nothing better to do but ski all summer! 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| the ice perv wrote: |
| But my point is that these places just wouldn't exist without being able to charge "expensive" or "absurd" rates becoz they would never be viable as a business proposition otherwise. |
No doubt that they are expensive to build and run, but at the moment there is also no effective competition because of geography and the fact that there are only two companies currently operating snowdomes in the UK. Neither of these aspects is conducive to low prices
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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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the ice perv, Do something else when you're there then ! Anyone mention racing ? 
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Not yet 
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You know it makes sense.
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Hemel had an open day yesterday, an exhibition/public consultation showing the finalised plans bar minor changes to allow locals, councillors and other interested parties to talk to the Hemel guys, the architects, the snow engineers etc on an informal and friendly basis. David Surrey the boss is a very friendly, earnest, down-to-earth chap. My kids have had a series of private lessons at Hemel over a couple of seasons now and he has always been helpful and approachable. We’ve always liked Hemel because it is friendly and good for families.
The development is intended to attract more users to the slope, particularly in the summer months. About 15 years ago there was a peak of slope usage of 100000 a year. It’s now down to about 35000 and particularly with new snow slopes being planned round the country, something would need to be done if to safeguard a longer-term future for the ski centre. Many years ago now defunct Hillingdon was my regular slope and a very good slope it was too.
Apart from just being a business, the ski centre has lots of links with the community, schools, youth organisations, the disabled, various companies, as well as its racing links, employment opportunities etc. A very impressive list was presented in the various clear bound proposals and plans provided for the public to peruse.
Fears of locals in terms of traffic, noise, the building itself are also comprehensively and sensitively addressed. In terms of traffic, even in its heyday, the traffic was not much affected by the slope. Then, the winter half-year throughput was 85000 and now they are really only aiming for 95000, as there isn’t really an increase in the slope capacity of 160 users at a time. It’s the summer half-year peak of 15000 that they’re aiming to get up to about 55000. They provided a detailed study of the traffic that shows this but I’m not that sad. Noise, flood-lighting etc aren’t an issue and actually will be better as it’ll all be enclosed rather than hearing the drags clattering and people chattering. The building itself looks quite attractive and I can’t see any problem there either. Parking will go from 120 to 185 spaces.
Snow-making, the snow-man tells me, is not an issue, lots of ways all pretty effective. It’s snow-keeping that’s the problem. Hemel is planning to use the British company Acer Snowmec Ltd, which is the same company as Xscape uses and also the company who made the fist UK slope at Telford, which was effectively their test slope. Their method involves snow maintenance by both underbase and surface air methods so gives better quality snow than say Tamworth, which always seems to me to rapidly become a sloping ice-skating rink – when the concrete isn’t showing through. Oh, and he confirmed to me that it is just air and water – definitely no chemicals. Ideally the underfloor bit cools 4” and the surface bit cools 4”, so if the snow layer is a lot thicker (MK can get to 1metre in places), the middle layer can warm up…
The slope itself will unfortunately get a fair amount shorter. I think it has maybe 140m skiable at the moment and this will drop to about 120m skiable, from a total length of about 147m. Of course MK which claims 170m wall to wall I guess is probably no longer than 140m skiable. On the upside, the slope will be substantially wider. The main slope at the moment is about 16m wide and it’ll go to 32m with drags either side. The nursery slope will also gain in width, at 45mx32m skiable. The main target customer though is lessons, so the plan is reasonably priced private lessons from better instructors, as well as the usual group lessons. Recreational skiing probably won’t be much if any cheaper than MK.
The current timetable is to submit for planning over the next few weeks. If approval comes early in the new year, they could be building after summer ’06, which will take a year, aiming for an October ’07 opening. Can’t wait.
Plans, architect's drawings, artist's impressions.
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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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slikedges, thanks for that! If it goes ahead, I might just inquire about an instructor job there - I could do 1/2 hour at lunch, and then straight after work!
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Poster: A snowHead
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slikedges, many thanks for all that interesting detail. I've emailed David Surrey and told him we're discussing his plans here.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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David Goldsmith, yes, I did tell him I was going to post this.
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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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BTW I should mention that the reason the snow slope will be shorter than the dry is that there is a big drain or some other kind of pipe running under the area between the current building and the current slope that they're not allowed to build on top of! They've therefore had to build the whole thing on the other side of the pipe to where the building is now, ie the slope side of the pipe, hence the remaining space for the actual slope being reduced.
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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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slikedges, Thanks for posting the info, from the drawings/sketches it actually doesn't seem to stand out to much. Certainly better than Castleford
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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.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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David Goldsmith, the Acer Snowmec people were there at Hemel and talking as part of the project team so I guess it's all but accepted that they'll be the snow-men. Certainly submission to planning would require that already to be decided. I've got no complaints about their snow. Madrid Xanadu was fine though not steep enough for anything other than beginners really. Dubai, Manchester and Glasgow are all also going to be Acer Snowmec I think. I wish snowdomes/dry slopes would be explicit about the skiable lengths of their slopes. The wall-to-wall usually quoted can be very misleading.
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Much too close to Milton Keynes, they will be draining customers from there rather than making new ones.
Why the Beckton indoor slope (east London) doesn't get someone interested in finishing it I can't think. The foundations were already in when the company went bust
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FAQ
