New hope for Weymouth Pavillion Peninsula

A development including things like an indoor sky-dive centre and climbing wall is being suggested for a prime seafront site in Weymouth.

Councillors are supporting a plan based around leisure rather than housing at the Pavilion peninsula in the town. It would also include a hotel and restaurants.

In 2005, a £100m scheme of homes, a hotel, restaurants, a ferry terminal and a new theatre was proposed for the site.

But estimated costs increased, market conditions changed and the deal collapsed four years later.

Since then, the Pavilion Theatre has successfully been taken on by private operators but the existing ferry terminal’s no longer in use.

The ferry operator, Condor Ferries, withdrew services from the port in 2014 after buying a new vessel that was too large for the terminal in Weymouth.

It moved services to Poole. Weymouth & Portland Borough Council had hoped a new company would take over, offering cross-channel services to France, but councillors says that now seems very unlikely.

There are mixed feelings that the new development won’t include a ferry terminal, but Weymouth & Portland Chamber of Commerce is broadly welcoming the re-development proposals.

Councillors have agreed to support the proposals and look at them again in December.