£350m Crawley Center Parcs plan scrapped by firm

Center Parcs has announced that it will abandon all plans for a proposed £350 million facility close to Crawley and Gatwick.

The holiday accommodation company officially laid out its plans to build a 553-acre resort community near Oldhouse Warren in Worth Forest back in July 2021.

The location was chosen, amongst other reasons, because it had great transit links to London. It would also have given the area 1,500 new employment opportunities. Center Parcs claimed that after environmental and biological investigations revealed that the region was unsuitable, the plans had to be scrapped. It would have been Britain's sixth Center Parcs location.

The news has been welcomed by local environmental groups. The site, according to environmentalists, would have destroyed established, mature woods and harmed the habitats of some endangered species. Landscapes Of Freedom's Dave Bangs called it a 'great triumph' for the surrounding community and the environment.

"Oldhouse Warren has long been known as an extraordinarily important site for wildlife," he told the BBC.

Colin McKinlay, Center Parcs' CEO, said this about the decision: "We have always been committed to only building our villages in areas where we can improve the biodiversity of the site. Whilst it is obviously disappointing that we will not be able to bring Center Parcs to this part of West Sussex, this decision demonstrates how seriously we take our responsibility to the environment, as well as our ongoing commitment to enhancing the natural habitats in which our villages are located."

"Through our customer insights we are confident that there is strong demand in the UK market for a sixth Center Parcs village and, with this in mind, we will continue our search for a suitable site."

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