WhiteWorld

At a meeting of Wycombe District Council Planning Committee last night (Wednesday 5th December 2007) all 12 members of the Committee unanimously approved the planning application for SnowDome Group Limited to develop the Wycombe SnowDome.

The application is now forwarded to Government Office South East (G.O.S.E.) as the consent granted by the local planning authority (Wycombe District Council) is a “departure from the local plan”. Accordingly central government, in the form of G.O.S.E., will need to ratify the local decision. This process should take a number of weeks only.

Martin Smith, Managing Director, said “This is fantastic news. We acquired the dry ski site 4 years ago with the explicit intent of developing our indoor snow & ice business. Tonight’s decision is a huge leap forward for the development.”

When asked about the timescale Martin Smith added “We intend to now proceed through with the preparation of tender drawings and subsequently award a contract for the construction. Presuming upon a build period of 12 months we would love to get started with the build in September of 2008 with a view to opening the venue in September 2009.”

The Wycombe SnowDome will be the closest indoor snow centre to London sitting on junction 4 of the M40. The facilities will include a 100M real snow slope, a real snow academy slope, a leisure ice rink and a children’s snow play area along with food and beverage offerings including a Starbucks Coffee outlet. The existing outdoor 300M dry ski slope will remain and the Wycombe SnowDome will be the only site in the UK that combines real snow with outdoor dry slope skiing – the best of both worlds!

More information at www.wycombesnowdome.co.uk

Comments(0)

Snowboarding and new school skiing are like most things in life…. it’s all about being at the right place at the right time. The platform www.snowparkguide.com offers all levels of snowpark riders first hand information that is normally only available to locals.

One of the website’s central elements is the Shaper’s Blog. More than 20 park builders and shapers post news from and around their parks in this blog. Park design changes, reshapes, event announcements, photo shoots and much more can be found there throughout the whole season. Additional to that the Voelkl team will report from most parks, so we can provide you a second opinion to the shapers perspective. User Comments to the blog entries are of course more than welcome. Not happy with your park? Want to send out big props to the shaper? Here you have the chance to let the people - who build your playgrounds - know what you like and what you don’t like about a specific park.

Additional to that you will find detailed information, regularly updated photo and video galleries from all our parks, travel packages, a Google Maps park finder and a complete snowboard and newschool ski event calendar.

A new feature is the user profile section. Similar to a Myspace page, users can create their individual profile and become part of the Snowparkguide community, invite friends, upload their personal photos and videos as well as post or receive comments. Each week the user pic of the week will be rewarded with a Voelkl goodie bag and at the end of each month we’ll pick the best photo from all the week winners. The winner prize will be an exclusive weekend in one of the Snowparkguide resorts. So get out your photo camera, take it up to the mountain and share your unique moments with us.

Check out: www.snowparkguide.com

Comments(0)

The second edition of the Davos Klosters Ride, aka ‘The British Big Mountain Championships’ will be taking place again this season in the snowy month of March.
The event is going to be bigger and better with the inclusion of an IFSA (International Free Skiers Association) sanctioned European tour event, which will be happening just after the British Big Mountain Championships. This will provide British Freeskiing athletes an excellent opportunity to qualify directly into a European standard competition. The Davos Klosters Ride 08 will be taking place from the 24^th to 28^th March 2008 in the world-renowned Davos Klosters Mountains. The Davos Klosters Ride 08 has been created by Ride Freesports and Southwell Enterprises to further promote backcountry skiing and snowboarding in the UK and to give British athletes a platform so they can compete in world class Freeride competitions like the Verbier Ride, Big Mountain Heli Ride and the Stimorol Engadinsnow 09. Event directors Warren Smith, Chris Southwell and Nick Southwell believe this will be a huge opportunity for UK freeskiers and Snowboarders to be judged with IFSA sanctioning, gain TV exposure and to eventually take their level to that of a European and World athlete.  The 24 minute TV programme director, Melody Sky, is excited about the opportunity to film a movie in the Davos Klosters Mountain’s and exposure the freeriding expanse to over 5 million viewers across the globe. The event will be a IFSA European Tour Qualifier with the top five male and top three female skiers gaining entrance in to the qualifiers of the European Tour Event on the 26^th and 27^th of March. The event will also be a qualifier for the top snowboarder to gain entry into the Stimorol Engadinsnow 09. This is a huge step for British Freeriding and will give the winner of the Davos Klosters Ride 08 a chance to compete against the likes of Ted Davenport, Flo Örley, Steve Klassen and Cyril Neril.

For more information about the Davos Klosters Ride 08, please visit the events official website on www.davosklostersride.com

Comments(0)