Work on Gulliver’s Valley theme park in Rotherham, Yorkshire, has been put on hold because of the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdown.

The 250-acre theme park was due to open in late spring. Bookings had started to be taken for entrance to the site in June.

In an announcement, the theme park’s owners said that work on the site had been suspended. While they acknowledged it could change, the owners also said they do not expect a delay to the planned opening date.

Julie Dalton, managing director of Gulliver’s Theme Parks and Resorts, commented: “To ensure the safety of our staff and to adhere to the Government guidance for people to stay at home, we decided to temporarily suspend construction work on our Gulliver’s Valley site on Monday, March 23.

“While we could never have predicted the current situation, we do have ample flexibility built into our schedule for unknown delays or disruption. Therefore, this existing downtime is currently not impacting on when we’ll be opening the doors. If this changes in the coming weeks then we will, of course, keep everyone updated.

“In the meantime, however, please be reassured that our back office team are still working extremely hard behind the scenes to deliver a fantastic theme park that will entertain families for many years to come creating even better experiences, birthday party products, sleepovers and some really exciting special events yet to be revealed!

“We cannot wait to continue the build. We’re ready to resume works as soon as it is safe for our teams to do so and we’ll be sure to keep the public updated with any new information as the situation unfolds,” Dalton continued.