A circular building topped with a union jack dome rises from the trees on the Swanscombe peninsula in Kent. With its flag tightly wrapped around a glass bubble, it looks like a little Brexit capsule, safely sealed off from the free movement and free markets of the outside world.

This is the proposed entrance pavilion to the London Resort, a £3.5bn theme park planned for the Thames estuary. This walled kingdom of themed “lands” would rise from the muddy marshes by 2024, just as Boris Johnson nears the end of this term as PM. The first images of this planned dreamland were unveiled a few days before the election and the project now seems like a fitting metaphor for the result. Why elect a government that would address social welfare, tackle rising homelessness and fix the NHS, when you can build a parallel fantasy world instead?

Working in partnership with Paramount Pictures, BBC and ITV, on behalf of a Kuwaiti developer, the team have concocted a perfect vision of little Britain that will bring a tear to even the most steely of Corbynite eyes. After being drawn into the great union jack glass tent, visitors will be funnelled into High Street, a place “full of shops and restaurants” – like actual British high streets used to be. Maybe there’ll be an empty library and an interactive food bank experience, too.

Roll up, roll up … concept artwork for the London Resort, to be created on a 535-acre Kentish site. Photograph: LRCH

From High Street, punters can progress to The Studio, described as a “gritty, modern-day warehouse district”, similar in fact to the cluster of industrial sheds that are already on the site. To the north lies The Woods, “an enchanted realm” with a whiff of Thomas Heatherwick, where elfin creatures roam the forest and garden bridges miraculously sprout from rivers.



Next is The Kingdom, promising a full-on feudal experience. It will be the best of British, where the landed gentry lord it over the peasants from heavily fortified castles, recalling the good old days before we joined the EU, and to which we’re returning having taken back control. Images show a magnificent Arthurian pile, topped with crenelated towers and flanked by fire-breathing dragons. A rickety wooden rollercoaster swirls around in contorted loops, while a medieval trebuchet-shaped ride swings ominously to and fro in the background.



The menu of enchanted escapism goes on. Next comes the The Isles, a place of “giant creatures, mythical beasts and adventures at the crossroads of imagination and reality”, as well as The Jungle, where ancient ruins of a long-lost civilisation (the welfare state?) will be visible through the tree canopy. Marvel at overgrown relics and “strange mystical artefacts” (is that social housing?) transported to the present by inquisitive explorers.

Themed lands … The Jungle, The Isles, The Kingdom, The Woods, The Studio, High Street and Starport. Photograph: LRCH

The final land, Starport, will catapult visitors into a thrilling future, with high-octane rides, alien encounters and sci-fi stardust. The developers say it will launch people into adventures that are out of this world, “leaving them mesmerised at things that should be impossible but are not”. Sounds painfully familiar.



First mooted in 2012 and subject to endless delays, the London Resort now looks to be back on track. Having dropped out in in 2017, Paramount is back, and the project is now headed by PY Gerbeau, the theme park whizz credited with turning around the fortunes of both EuroDisney and the Millennium Dome. The park’s long-awaited arrival now seems a welcome prospect. By 2024, it might be the escape from reality that we will all desperately crave.

