Dreamland: Margate amusement park sold for £2.3m

An historic seafront amusement park was sold for £2.3m, a report shows.

Dreamland in Margate, Kent, was taken over by Thanet District Council with a compulsory purchase order in 2011.

It sold the site - and a council-owned car park - for £7m last December, with £5.8m to be paid to the former owners in compensation and costs.

A council report said the decision to compulsory purchase the site "may not have been taken if the full costs and risks had been known at the time".

Deputy chief executive Tim Willis concluded: "No-one envisaged such a fraught and resource-intensive process when the council first issued the CPO ten years ago."

Dreamland operators Sands Heritage Ltd - which has a 99-year lease on the site - bought the amusement park, cinema, scenic railways and rides for £2.3m. It paid a further £4.7m for a nearby council-owned car park.

The council has also reached an agreement with former owners Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company, which unsuccessfully challenged the compulsory purchase in the High Court in 2013. It will be paid £4.5m in compensation and receive about £1.3m for legal fees and interest.

The disused theme park and cinema has been rebuilt, with £8m invested by the council and a further £11.4m from the government and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Its sale will save the council maintenance and management costs, but the loss of the car park will lead to lost revenues from parking charges, the report said.

However, the £1.2m left after paying off the former owners will be used to "to repay enough Dreamland-related debt to offset the loss of car park income".

The report concluded that the sale of Dreamland and a public car park will have a "net zero impact" on the council's finances.

Council leader, Cllr Rick Everitt, said the transformation of the "derelict and unloved" site was a "major success story".

The terms of the sale stipulate that homes cannot be built on the site for the next ten years.