A very impressive property in Great Yarmouth is currently being renovated to help restore another grand attraction to the seaside destination. Planned to re-open over the next couple of years, as it stands, it looks to be a promising project.
However, Great Yarmouth has endured many high-profile struggles when looking to build out its offering in recent years. Previous plans to create some Las Vegas-style venues around the country looked to flow to the shores of Great Yarmouth, but those projects never came to fruition.
Perhaps the Winter Gardens project will prove a success and maybe even revive Edge.
An £18 million Restoration Project
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The Winter Gardens building, in its heyday, is quite impressive. Modelled on London’s Crystal Palace, it stretches around 52 metres from east to west and features a lantern-topped tower standing 25 metres high. From the outside, it’s the massive iron-framed glass panes that immediately catch the eye.
However, the building first established in 1878 in Torquay, which moved to Great Yarmouth in 1904, has been closed since 2008. In that time, it was used for exhibitions, as a ballroom, and for rollerskating. Ideally, the renovation works on the Winter Gardens will conclude by 2028.
To achieve this, £18 million has been committed to the project. The National Lottery Heritage Fund will be backing it with £12.3 million, while another £4 million is coming in from the Town Deal Fund run by the government. Plans reveal that the Grade II listed building will be transformed into an entertainment and leisure venue with cafés and indoor gardens.
The £30 million Project Lost
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Around the same time that the Winter Gardens closed, another project was to get underway on the beachfront of Great Yarmouth. From 2008 to 2013, permission was granted to go through with a £30 million project that would have a casino as its centrepiece. This new centre was to be called The Edge, and the owners had landed a gambling licence.
This is a pretty substantial step towards opening a gambling venue in the UK, or to have any kind of gambling business. As you may know, the collection of casino games online, from the providers to the platforms hosting the games, need to meet the high and strict standards of the Gambling Commission.
The licence structure has greatly helped to create a competitive gambling space online, filled with all forms of roulette, poker, blackjack, and more. On land, there are only a handful of casino venues that offer a similar spread of gaming options. The Edge, in theory, would have become a major casino venue, perhaps similar to London’s top venue.
However, in 2023 the mega casino project was finally killed off for good, it seems. The council agreed to return the licence to the government, which had previously been officially won by the Pleasure Beach owner in 2013. In the run to landing the licence, however, their planned partner for establishing the casino moved on to Swansea.
As it stands, the Town Investment Plan doesn’t feature the construction of a large casino venue, which is why the licence was returned. The council could return to these plans in the future if the Winter Gardens project proves successful, but for now, The Edge won’t be getting revived soon.