Mega Christmas attraction headed to Macclesfield

Beloved by royals and celebrities, Lapland UK has unveiled its plans to open a North West location on 43 acres at Capesthorne Hall.

Lapland is a four-hour immersive Christmas experience where families enter an enchanted forest where they’ll meet Father Christmas and his elves, make toys, decorate gingerbread, ice skate, and meet reindeer. It currently only has one location – Whitmoor Forest in Ascot.

But that could change, should the attraction find favour with Cheshire East Council’s planning authority.

Plans submitted for Lapland from Firstplan outline how the attraction would expand into Macclesfield. The application is for 10 years, with “Lapland Manchester”, as it will be called, set to open in time for the 2025 Christmas season.

If successful, Lapland estimates it could generate £24.5m a year for the area through projected visitor spend, supplier spend, and employment wages. It would employ approximately 1,200 individuals each year, many of whom are likely to be local.

Lapland estimates that its attraction would receive similar numbers to the Ascot version, with 13,500 families – equating to 170,000 individuals – visiting each year.

Work on the Cheshire East version would start in the final week of September, with the site cleared by the first week of February each year. The attraction itself would run from the start of November up to Christmas Eve.

Lapland said it had chosen to set up shop on the grounds of the grade two star-listed Capesthorne Hall because it already had the infrastructure in place to accommodate the expected visitor crowds.

This includes one parking area with up to 563 spaces for cars, another with 314 spaces for staff vehicles, and two more that could be reserved for blue badge and priority visitors. The last two would hold a total of 74 spaces.

As for the hall, the Christmas season is a quieter time for visitors, so this would help it see more footfall. Money generated from the attraction would also support repairs, maintenance, and conservation efforts, according to planning documents.

It is worth noting that there is one considerable obstacle facing Lapland’s Cheshire ambitions – the fact that it would be sitting on Green Belt and open countryside.

On the upside, the scheme does include a promise to plant 422 new trees.

In addition to Firstplan, the project team includes David Jarvis Associates, The Heritage Practice, Kingdom Ecology, Robinson Forestry, and TTP Consulting.

You can learn more about Lapland’s proposals by searching reference number 24/4504/FUL on Cheshire East Council’s planning portal.