Dreamland, the famous seaside amusement park at Margate, England, has been sold for £2.3m.
The park was taken over by the local council through a compulsory purchase order in 2011 and, according to BBC News, it has sold the park, and the car park adjoining it, for £7m, with £5.8m to go to the former owners in compensation and costs.
A report at the council said the decision to compulsory purchase the site would not have been taken if the full costs and risks had been known at the time. Deputy chief executive Tim Willis: “No-one envisaged such a fraught and resource-intensive process when the council first issued the compulsory purchase order 10 years ago.”
The operators of Dreamland, Sands Heritage, with a 99-year lease on the site, bought the park, cinema, scenic railways and rides for £2.3m. It paid another £4.7m for a nearby council-owned car park.
The former owners of the park, Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company, had challenged the compulsory purchase order in court in 2013, unsuccessfully. It will receive £4.5m in compensation and another £1.3m for legal fees and interest.
The park and cinema, meanwhile, has been rebuilt with £8m invested by the council and a further £11.4m from the government and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The sale will save the council maintenance and management costs but it will lose revenue from parking charges on the car park.
Left after paying off the former owners will be £1.2m, which will be used to repay enough of Dreamland’s debts to offset the loss of car park income, says the report.
