Zoos (Regional Economic Development)

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the 7,000 animals from 400 species that live in my constituency at Chester zoo. It is Britain’s most popular zoo, and generates 1.4 million visits a year. It is regularly rated one of the top 15 zoos in the world.

Since its establishment in 1934, Chester zoo and the North of England Zoological Society has always been a charity and a members’ organisation, and has always had a social enterprise ethos. Because of that, Chester zoo has for more than 75 years been a big society success story. Today, it generates some £13.5 million in visitor revenue, and employs some 300 core staff year round, and 160 seasonal staff during the summer. It is a high-quality employer that brings good, long-lasting jobs to our local economy.

Like many zoos—we heard about Twycross—Chester is a leader in conservation, both at home and abroad. In the UK, it is responsible for breeding many native species and reintroducing them back into the environment, including sand lizards, dormice and harvest mice. It is also a centre of international excellence for breeding programmes with other zoos to provide an insurance policy so that many endangered species have a large enough population to ensure genetic stability. We are looking forward to the opening within the next couple of weeks of a £250,000 giant otter breeding centre, which will include underwater viewing areas with tunnels allowing people to pop up among the giant otters. It will include a breeding programme for giant otters, which are an endangered species from south America.

Chester zoo is involved in more than 150 field projects in 50 countries. It directly runs 10 major field programmes throughout the world, involving elephants, black rhinos, jaguars, the realm of the red ape, and a Nigerian project. Through conservation and research grants from the North of England Zoological Society, it funds more than 60 field projects around the world word, including projects on cheetahs and komodo dragons.

Like many zoos throughout the world, much of the Chester zoo’s international work is based in the far east, south Asia and south America, which are some of the fastest growing economies in the world. We have brands and zoos that are doing good work in those countries, and we should use their good name and their facilities to ensure that we sell Britain and British companies to those fast-growing countries to enable and support our economic growth. We have heard about research and educational facilities offered by zoos, and Chester zoo does all that.

I turn to what Chester zoo wants to do in future. It has huge ambitions. For the past two years, it has been drawing up a £225 million natural vision project, which hopes to transform the zoo over 12 years into one of the world’s largest and greatest animal and visitor experiences. The idea is to develop a series of themed zones, and to expand the size of the zoo by one third to make it one of the largest in Europe. As part of that proposal, it is planning to safeguard some 500 jobs, and to create 660 new jobs in the zoo and the local economy. The total cost will be £225 million, with the first phase costing some £90 million.

Planning approval was granted in November last year, but there are difficulties because the zoo was promised £40 million from the Northwest Development Agency, and that money is no longer available. It is now looking for alternative sources, and trying to rearrange its plans to ensure that it can deliver as much as possible through its own resources. It is being successful in that. Over the next couple of years, it is hoping to use its own resources to open an islands exhibit, which will focus on Madagascar, Mauritius, Sumatra and other south-east Asian islands. It will feature an Indonesian show house, boat rides, and underwater viewing of animals. It will house Sumatran orang-utans, tigers, komodo dragons, fruit bats and crocodiles. Part of the proposal is to build a 150-bed themed hotel within one of the themed zones.

The zoo’s idea in developing the natural vision project is to ensure that visitors will not have just a one-day experience, but stay the night in Chester, go to restaurants, and spend money in the local economy. We have noted that the zoo attracts a huge number of visitors, but many of them are day visitors. They catch a train or drive to Chester, visit the zoo and then go home again. We want to try to ensure that people come and stay the night. If they spend several days in Chester, they can visit not only the zoo but the other attractions that Chester has to offer. They might also visit Liverpool or north Wales in the wider sub-region. Chester zoo sees itself as an engine for growth locally. With its large, high-profile projects planned for the future, it can deliver real economic benefits.

The North of England Zoological Society at Chester zoo has huge ambitions, which is down to the work of the zoo’s director general, Mark Pilgrim, and Barbara Smith, the managing director. If the Minister is interested in seeing the good work that zoos do in the local economy and the good work that is planned for the future, Chester and the zoo will be happy to welcome him.