IN Brief:
- Glencar is delivering the £50m Minecraft-themed land at Chessington World of Adventures.
- The project has reached structural steelwork stage after foundations and early works began within the live park environment.
- The scheme combines buildings, ride elements, themed structures, public areas, and coordinated delivery ahead of a planned 2027 opening.
Glencar has started structural steelwork on the £50m Minecraft World development at Chessington World of Adventures, moving the immersive leisure scheme above ground ahead of its planned 2027 opening.
The contractor is delivering the new themed land for Merlin Entertainments, turning one of the world’s best-known gaming brands into a physical visitor attraction. The scheme combines building works, ride infrastructure, themed structures, circulation areas, services, and operational interfaces within an existing theme park.
Early works have included large-scale foundations to support both buildings and ride elements. With structural steelwork now under way, the project is moving into a more visible phase, where the accuracy of the primary frame will shape later installation of facades, themed finishes, ride components, plant, and public-realm features.
Construction inside an operating theme park creates a different set of demands from standard commercial building. Access routes are constrained, visitor flows must be protected, and works have to be planned around seasonal peaks, live operations, and safety-critical boundaries between public areas and construction zones.
Those conditions place heavy emphasis on logistics planning and sequencing. Deliveries, craneage, temporary works, workforce movement, and site segregation have to be coordinated with the operator’s own maintenance, safety, and guest-experience teams. A conventional site boundary is rarely enough when construction activity is taking place around a live leisure destination.
The attraction format also brings unusual technical interfaces. Ride structures, buildings, audio-visual systems, lighting, control equipment, themed surfaces, mechanical and electrical systems, and fire strategy must align with the creative design as well as the construction programme. Changes to themed components can affect structure, services, accessibility, crowd movement, or commissioning, making early coordination more important than in a standard shell-and-core project.
Leisure clients are increasingly commissioning immersive environments rather than isolated rides or buildings. That moves more design and delivery risk into the main construction programme, because the finished asset has to function as a building, attraction, public space, and branded environment. Contractors working in this market need to coordinate specialist suppliers while maintaining the discipline of a conventional build.
Public-facing leisure projects are also exposed to fixed opening windows. Programme delay can affect marketing campaigns, seasonal trading, recruitment, testing, and operator revenue. The difficulty of maintaining momentum on such schemes was underlined by the collapse of Curo Construction, which placed the Whittlesey Manor Leisure Centre redevelopment under pressure and highlighted the importance of contractor resilience on community and leisure facilities.
Minecraft World is backed by a major private leisure operator and a globally recognised entertainment brand, but the delivery pressures remain practical. Foundations, steelwork, ride supports, services, access routes, finishes, testing, and operational readiness all need to converge before the attraction can open.
The move into steelwork therefore marks more than a simple progress point. It signals the start of a phase where interfaces multiply and where decisions made in the structural frame will influence the quality, safety, and speed of later fit-out. For Glencar, the project provides a high-profile example of construction in a live leisure setting, where programme control and coordination are as important as the physical build.
