A pioneering 200-acre, multi-use leisure development, earmarked for Aylesbury Vale in Buckinghamshire, has secured a developer - Evergreen Homes - to move the project forward after six-years in the planning.
The development, which could cost between £200m and £300m, will offer a range of world-class leisure facilities along with a boot camp and hostels for disaffected youth.
Evergreen Homes will be involved with both the corporate and social project in conjunction with Neil Axe, who is the brain behind the project.
The development will be centered around a 25,000-seat National Combat Sports Stadium (NCSS), which will be used for martial arts, including boxing and wrestling. Axe says the stadium will "rival the O2 in London and the NEC venues in Birmingham", in hosting live music concerts. It will also provide training facilities, including a fitness studio and physiotherapy and sports medicine services.
There will also be a 10,000-seat stadium for the Aylesbury United football team, hotels, a waterpark, a casino, extreme and BMX sports facilities, a strip mall, warehouse shopping, a cinema, bars and restaurants. The project will include and be partially funded by the development of 1,500 homes.
Alongside the leisure facilities, Axe is planning to create a range of support services for young offenders. He has met with home secretary Jackie Smith and is soon to hold discussions with London mayor, Boris Johnson to propose the creation of a 'sport boot camp' for young offenders and services for victims of violence and bullying.
The new facilities will include hostels to house up to 500 people a week and the creation of a behaviour-improvement programme that young people can participate in three to four times a year.
Among the services to be provided will be counseling and training in martial arts, to provide an outlet for aggression. Service staff will be recruited and trained as youth mentors to direct rehabilitation.
Evergreen will continue to discuss the details of the complex over the next six to nine months, so plans can be submitted for public consultation.
Those involved have ambitions to have the complex completed by 2012.
