Chessington apply for planning permission for project refresh and renew

Yesterday was a busy day for Merlin Parks submitting planning permission applications, not only did Thorpe Park apply to finally remove The Slammer but (more excitingly), Chessington have applied for planning permission to redo Wild Asia including their new roller coaster which is expected to be themed around Minecraft. Chessington have said this will be a £20 million investment.

The full planning documents can be found here on the Kingston upon Thames council planning portal.

In this blog we’ll dive into everything Chessington have applied for in this application.

Removing Rides and Buildings

Let’s start with the sad part of the planning application. As part of the redevelopment of Wild Asia Chessington will be removing Monkey Swinger, Jungle Bus and Temple of Mayhem alongside relocating the Lorikeets to elsewhere in the park. They will also be demolishing a number of buildings a lot of which have been around since before Beanoland.

In the application Chessington have said they will be putting Monkey Swinger and Jungle Bus into storage. We don’t know if they will be used at another Merlin Park or elsewhere in Chessington in the future but they will be initially stored on site at Chessington.

Which rides are staying?

The only remaining ride will be Kobra, the Zamperla Disco. This ride will be getting a re-theme and moved slightly (around 100m) to fit within the new land. The archway will form one of the entrances to this new area. Kobra currently has some fantastic theming so I hope they will keep this standard for the new Minecraft theme.

Chessington’s New Rollercoaster!

The biggest part of this application is the new roller coaster of which, 75% will be inside with an outside section. This will be similar to the Movie Park Studio’s Tour ride over at Movie Park, Germany. Whilst Chessington haven’t confirmed the manufacturer yet it’s expected to be Intamin and rumours suggest it could be their new Family LSM coaster they announced via a live stream and at IAAPA earlier this week. Intamin say this new model can have fast spikes, inversions, backwards launch sections and will support online audio. If this is the roller coaster coming to Chessington it’s going to be fantastic.

The images in the application tell us you will be queuing around and underneath the station before boarding on the 2nd floor. This building will also house a kitchen, indoor seating and a sensory space plus a shop unit.

Chessington also show a bag drop section which looks to be double-sided to help with quick boarding.

An Immersive Experience

The final part of the application shows a new flat ride which is described as an immersive experience with a viewing area. There’s no indication of what this ride is going to be but with Merlin’s press-release for Minecraft talking about there being interactive areas I think it could be something that allows you to interact with parts of it, perhaps in a similar way to being able to interact with various parts of Super Mario Land at Universal Hollywood.

When will planning permission be granted?

We know Chessington want to open this for 2027 and so the park will likely be hoping to get planning permission in the first quarter of 2025 and I’d expect them to close Wild Asia in Summer 2025 to begin work. Of course, planning permission will depend on the planning committee and any objections. Chessington is situated in quite a built-up area so whilst I’d expect there to be some concerns about the application with the majority of the roller coaster being indoors I expect this to be given planning consent (but I’m not expert!).