Chester Zoo's ambitious £225 million plan that will see it transformed into the largest conservation, animal and leisure attraction of its kind in Europe _320
CHESTER Zoo will today unveil an ambitious £225m scheme to create an “Eden project for the North”.
A unique bio-dome recreating an African rainforest – complete with plants and animals from the continent – will form part of a £90m first phase, which will also include a 90-bed hotel.
Commercial director of the zoo, David Titmuss, last night predicted the domed eco-system – around the size of Wembley stadium – would be a major boost for the north west economy.
He said: “The Eden Project could be called an inspiration, but ours will be more complex because it has to deal with a whole variety of flora, fauna and animals.
“We want people to walk in to the dome and get a good feeling of what it would be like in an African forest.”
Called “Heart of Africa”, the bio-dome will be an African rainforest-themed sanctuary for a band of gorillas, a large troupe of chimpanzees, Okapi (rare giraffe-like creatures), and a wide variety of tropical birds, amphibians, reptiles, fishes and invertebrates.
The first phase – planning permission for which will be sought later this year – will also include the hotel, a Conservation College, and a revamped main entrance linking to a marina development on zoo land beside the Shropshire Union Canal.
Mr Titmuss said he believed the current recession would be no barrier to their plans, and they hoped to get financial and other support from the NWDA, but the zoo itself would be putting “considerable resources of its own into the project”.
The rest of the Natural Vision project will be completed by 2018 and include a Savannah area, creating one of the largest wildlife attractions in the world, and one of the biggest enclosed spaces in the UK.
The aim is that the new dome will both showcase and financially support the zoo’s national and international conservation work, which already spans 50 countries.
Prof Gordon McGregor Reid, director general of Chester Zoo, said: “Chester Zoo already actively supports and runs conservation, science and veterinary projects in all corners of the globe, but the increased visitor footfall from this new project will dramatically increase what we are able to do and fund out in the field.
