One year after acquiring Skirlington Coast Yorkshire, Unity Holidays is to invest £20m in revamping the holiday park’s entertainment complex, creating 120 permanent jobs and more than 200 seasonal positions.

The upgraded facility will include traditional rides and attractions, as well as boardwalks, new dining options and extensions to the existing pool area, with the project expected to be complete before April 2026.

“We will have Helter Skelters and Wurlitzers, entertainment venues and all the rest of the fish and chips, candy floss and pop-up entertainment you expect from a traditional seaside town,” said Dermot King, CEO of Unity’s owner Legacy Leisure Group.

“More importantly we’re not recreating it, we’re reinventing it, through the Festival Gardens concept – a landscape walkway which will have loads of pop-up entertainment and activities. You’ve got to bring a modern spin to all of this, so there’ll be a suite of sports and leisure activities that you can access through the pavilion, which we are recreating.”

The company has already invested £10m in opening a new theatre and pub on the site, with King adding “I can’t imagine there are other people investing this sort of money in the region.” 

“We’ve got a lot that’s going to be subject to planning, but these are things that planners get excited about, so fingers crossed, it’ll be spades in the ground soon.”