Often referred to as the city's 'Jewel In The Crown' the site near Mold is to be let by The Kingswood Group, who run several educational centres across the country. The company is investing 拢10million into Colomendy to bring it up to date and will maintain control of the camp for the next 30 years.
| The new zip wire |
This means that the site near Mold, which has been visited by over 350,000 Liverpool school children spanning generations, will no longer be run by Liverpool City Council solely for local children - the camp will now be open to visitors from all over the country. More modern activity camps around the country are being favoured ahead of Colomendy, which remained largely unchanged since it opened to accommodate Liverpool evacuees in 1939. In the last ten years the number of Liverpool school children attending the site has dropped from 30,000 a year to 7,000 a year. Old fashioned accommodation, outside toilets and lack of modern activity facilities have meant that schools have chosen different sites over Colomendy. "New developments include zip wires, army-style scramble nets, climbing walls, a new lake for water based activities" | |
The new developments include modern accommodation and a range of outdoor activities. Features include one of the longest zip wires in the country, army-style scramble nets, climbing walls, a new lake for water based activities and an underground cave complex. The site also created nature reserves and there are plans to redevelop the existing farm and walled garden. The site needs this level of investment in order to survive, but there is much debate over whether Liverpool City Council should lose control of something that is so special to generations of Liverpool people. The Executive Board at the council have agreed to lease Colomendy to Kingswood, but could still be blocked by a committee of councilors who meet in coming weeks. |