Fairground Attraction? - Morecambe

Videos by Drone
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Up until November 1999 Morecambe had its very own permanent funfair called Frontierland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontierland,_MorecambeThe only thing to replace it now is the occasional travelling fairground that comes here on the old Bubbles Leisure Complex site. As well as in indoor pool this used to have wave machines and water slides to an outdoor pool. It opened in 1991 and brought joy to many who braved the elements swimming in the open air pool. After being a popular attraction for almost 10 years it finally closed and was demolished in 2001.

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Nice video :+1:

Is this correct? I thought Fronterland opened in 1906 :thinking:

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The video isn’t that of the Frontierland site, it’s the old Bubbles site, previously the Super Swimming Stadium, and mentions Frontierland because the land is now used by travelling fairs.

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No i think you’ve misunderstood, it was the Bubbles swimming complex that opened in 1991 :+1:

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Yup, misread. My bad :wink:

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It was MLP, Morecambe Leisure Park from around ‘78 or ‘79 I think. The Dome had its white cap put on in ‘81 as it got too hot in summer & the Bender water slide was added in the winter of ‘85 when quite a few of the summer staff stayed on to be part of the assembly team.
I started there when it was Council owned in ‘86 when the blue sun canopy was added to the seaward embankment & was one of 3 council employees that got transferred to Clifford Barnett developments who bought it in ‘89. It was CBD who constructed the indoor pool, renaming it Bubbles. They went bust overnight after the summer ‘90 season! I & a few others who worked our a$$es off lost a months pay turning up to find the doors chained up!
It was resurrected for the ‘91 season but honestly, it was never the same. The skills & idiosyncrasies that it needed to run the plant & outdoor pool were lost. It was a temperamental plant room. The pool was below the water level which originally brought off the tiles due to pressure & then subsequently the paint that replaced them. The drainage pump would keep failing & the wave machine would just trip. In the Dome, the acoustics would confuse some of the best sound technicians until you helped them bounce the right type of feeds in specific directions :see_no_evil::scream:
The Council definitely pulled a blinder when they offloaded it in ‘89 in my opinion :rofl:
Still, not good to see it go as it did.

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That’s really interesting to hear but really sad at the same time :slightly_frowning_face:. Thanks for sharing that info

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The cost to repair the original stadium was less than the cost of Bubbles but Bubbles was eligible for an EU grant making it the cheaper option in real terms.

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I believe so & part of the grant was that it had to be an open air Lido style. The design was based on a Lido in southern France where the weather was way better :rofl::see_no_evil:

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I believe now that the site has been given the go ahead to become the Eden Project North.

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If they make it as good as the Cornwall Eden project , it should be good ! I go to the Eden project every year and am a member of the Eden project Cornwall well worth a visit! would love to fly over the domes , but that is a big no no… :grimacing: :wink:

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Council have given permission to use the land and they’ve submitted a planning application. I’m not aware they’ve got any financial commitment other than £1M towards the feasibility study. Estimated costs have gone up from the original 75M when it was first mooted to 125M about 6 months ago.