Aqua park near Scarborough will be allowed to operate all-year round

In April 2019, The Dawnay Estates received planning consent from Scarborough Borough Council in April to expand the North Yorkshire Water Park, based on Wykeham Lake and add in wakeboarding lines.

As part of the approval, a condition was placed on the attraction that it should have a winter break between November 1 and March 31 and all inflatables linked to the water-based assault course were removed from the lake in order to protect birds.

Earlier this year, the operators asked Scarborough Council’s planning committee to approve a three-year trial of activities running throughout the year.

At a meeting of the committee in March, councillors instead decided instead to defer the application so they could take a site visit after members raised concerns about its impact on migrating birds.

Following the socially distanced site visit this week, the planning councillors approved the application.

Cllr Subash Sharma said: “I was very impressed by what I saw and some of my fears were allayed by going there.”

The applicants had previously agreed to close the site during extreme cold weather following advice from local ornithologists.

However, the committee decided to change how the air temperature was recorded, moving to a seven day rolling average rather than seven consecutive days of below subzero temperatures as had previously been agreed.

The park opened in 2017, offering visitors two aquatic challenge tracks alongside pedalos and open water swimming.

Last year, it succeeded in getting the approval to grow the operation to include the creation of an “aqua park zone” which consists of inflatable equipment that will form an aquatic obstacle course.

The expansion also included the installation of two 240m long wakeboarding lines, the redesign of a toilet block, the building of a new reception building and the erection of a café on the site.