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'The healthy shape of the region's tourism industry also has a number of large-scale regeneration projects breathing life back into communities and reviving redundant land. The Glasshoughton development in Castleford is one such example. Once home to a thriving colliery and coke works, the surrounding community was economically and socially dependant on the site until it closed in 1986, leaving a 336-acre site to stand derelict for almost ten years.

But since a massive reclamation exercise, the site is now home to entertainment centre Xscape, a 20-acre housing development, B&Q, Freeport Designer Outlet Village and numerous other leisure retailers, not to mention the variety of companies located on surrounding Business Park. New roads and a new train station have also been constructed, while plans are afoot to build a stadium for the Castleford Tigers rugby league team on the site.

"At present, Glasshoughton attracts over three million visitors every year, second only to Alton Towers in the UK," says Stuart McLoughlin, Managing Director of Waystone, the developer behind the scheme. "This just goes to show that, by developing sites such as these, we are not only regenerating a whole area, but attracting new visitors and tourists to Yorkshire who in turn may like what they see and revisit or even make a permanent home here."

And Xscape in particular has been a notable success. The £56m venue is home to a climbing wall, skate park and a cinema, not to mention SNO!zone, a 170m-long slope that's covered in 1,500 tonnes of fresh snow'.

Insider - May 2008