Quote:
Originally Posted by cashman
twas Eddie Quigliotti, the marvel that never was.  |
Apparently sadly no longer with us, but here's his obituary, which mentions the Zeri centre.
Mr Eddie Quiligotti MBE planned to call the centre Zeri after his home village in Tuscany.
The former tile company boss announced the plan to an incredulous population amid a blaze of publicity in 1989.
It was to have featured winter and summer worlds, a huge 15,000-seater stadium and a 300-room hotel spread over the 300-acre site of the former power station.
It would have been Europe’s largest theme park and holiday centre, and it was projected to create 5,000 jobs and attract 4,000 visitors a day.
The idea was embraced by planners as a way of guaranteeing Hyndburn’s fame and fortune for years to come.
The winter wonderland was to have contained an ice palace, ski-ing on six dry slopes, a toboggan run and a lake while a sea world would have provided aquaria, water rides and boat trips.
Also earmarked for Zeri were restaurants, shops, cinemas, villas, a conference centre, gardens and an adventureland with light shows and white knuckle rides.
And the diverse attractions would have been linked by a one-and-a-half-mile-long cable car track similar to the one used in ski resorts.
The idea was taken extremely seriously for a time, with then planning officer John Tilley stating: "This is the biggest thing that will ever happen around here. People will be attracted to the area for holidays and some may never set foot outside the complex."
But the plan never got off the drawing board and four years later it was announced that the bubble had finally burst.
Mr Quiligotti had pledged £1M of his own cash to the scheme but as a recession began to bite he failed to attract the financial backing for the remaining £299M.
He said sadly: "It is all over. I have been banging my head against a brick wall."
But critics said they had known what would happen right from the start.