Who owns dreamland

Conditions are attached to the sale to ensure that the listed heritage structures are protected and a restrictive covenant is in place to control future use of the site and retain it for leisure.

What's for dinner? Plan meals, try new foods and explore cuisines with tested recipes from the country's top chefs. Trying to find the right nursery, school, college, university or training provider in Kent or Medway?

Our Education Directory has everything you could possibly need! Sign in. Premium login. Kent nline. Thursday, Nov 11 Find local news.

Your local news for Kent. Kent nline Sign in. Dreamland began the s under new ownership, in the shape of the rather uninspiring-sounding Associated Leisure Entertainments Ltd. The new owners did, however, promise to bring renewal and excitement to their new asset, with new rides, new attractions and a revamp of the cinema. Iconic giant slide the Astroglide arrived at the park in and there was also the 20, Leagues Under the Sea ride and the Cyclone for visitors to enjoy by the middle of the decade, when a small zoo was also reintroduced.

The popular Water Chute made its first appearance in and would soon play host to safety-pinned punk rockers, as the cult made its way from London to the seaside. At least their drainpipe trousers needed less wringing out than the flares of the disco fans. Away from the amusement park there were a lot of changes in the cinema building, with the main auditorium being divided to make two smaller cinemas and also a theatre.

Though music was still more of a draw for the locals, especially in the ballroom, which was refurbished and rebranded as Topspot. Slade, Alvin Stardust and The Drifters also graced the stage at the Topspot, with local girl Tracey Emin being a regular on its dance floor. Dreamland gave Margate yet another iconic structure in , in the shape of the new Big Wheel, which stood proud of the clock tower at feet high.

In the days before the London Eye this was very much a structure that had people come to look at from miles around. It felt like the start of a new era for Dreamland, but it would prove to be the end of one, as the whole site was sold to Dutch amusement park operators Bembom in Dreamland was re-named as Bembom Brothers Theme Park and the public were excited by the arrival of a slew of new rides, including the white knuckle looping coaster the Looping Star. This new move attracted more Muslim visitors, with the brothers setting aside a grassed prayer area facing Mecca to accommodate them.

The major change for most was the introduction of an admission charge. Once you were in all the rides were free, though the charge meant that many local youths who may go for one or two rides were priced out of a visit. The park started and ended the decade as the star of television, with seeing it providing a backdrop for part of the Only Fools and Horses Christmas special The Jolly Boys Outing.

The Romford-based band Five Star shot the majority of the video for their single "Crazy" at Dreamland. Dreamland got its full name back in , when the Bembom Brothers decided that a minor revamp would be best promoted by the name that most still recognised and used to describe the park. More greenery was added to the landscape around the rides and the cinema was renovated.

Free admission to the site also returned in , though it was not long before the Bemboms were moving on, as Dreamland was sold on to Jimmy Godden, owner of the Rotunda amusement park in Folkestone. Godden wanted to move the park in an even more family-friendly direction, dispensing with larger white knuckle rides in favour of more traditional fairground favourites such as dodgems and waltzers. Though some of the extensive renovation work was delayed when workmen reported ghostly goings on in a new version of the former Dreamland favourite the River Caves.

A clairvoyant called into to resolve the matter said that the disturbance was down to the spirit of a murdered young woman who had been accused of immoral activities and was now keen to clear her name. The iconic Big Wheel was dismantled and sold to Mexican buyers, though the double Log Flume, Wild Mouse and the Space Station rides in place at least meant that the skyline of Margate retained some visible rides to tantalise potential visitors. The Scenic Stage and the Events Space are outdoor events arenas adjacent to the amusement park that have 5, and 15, people capacity respectively.

The sale comes just one day after MEL announced it was seeking further investment in order to develop the cinema building, construct a bedroom hotel, and create an all-weather visitor attraction, conferencing and events space. The Dreamland site is likely to remain under the operation of Sands Heritage Ltd, which held a year lease on the site until , when it was installed as freeholder by Arrowgrass Master Fund Ltd, the Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund which also owns MEL.

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

As is common practice with almost all professional websites this site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your experience.

This page describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or 'break' certain elements of the sites functionality.

We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use. You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser see your browser Help for how to do this.

Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the this site.