Few things get the Alton Towers enthusiast community talking quite like Project Horizon. It’s been in development since late 2022, it’s got full planning permission, and it’s still — as of the time of writing — essentially a fenced-off patch of ground rather than a working rollercoaster. For a park that hasn’t opened a genuinely new major coaster since Wicker Man in 2018, that’s a long wait, and it’s one that keeps getting longer. So what actually is Project Horizon, why has it taken this long, and is there any real sign it’s finally moving? Here’s everything currently known, pieced together from planning documents, council filings, and years of dedicated enthusiast tracking.
What Project Horizon Actually Is Project Horizon is the working codename for a new indoor rollercoaster planned for a section of the park known to long-time visitors as Coaster Corner — an area in the south-western part of the resort that was, decades ago, genuinely home to three separate rollercoasters, back when the site had originally been a coach park before being redeveloped for rides. That earlier chapter of the site’s history came to an end back in 1991-1992, and the area has functioned largely as a service yard ever since, tucked away from public view for over thirty years. The new attraction’s entrance is planned to sit between the former Alton Towers Dungeon and The World of David Walliams, bringing this long-dormant corner of the resort back into active use for the first time in a generation. It’s confirmed, via the planning documents themselves, to be a rollercoaster — though notably, those same documents stop well short of revealing what kind of coaster, who’s building it, or what it might be themed around.
The Numbers: What the Planning Documents Actually Reveal While Alton Towers has kept the ride experience itself tightly under wraps, the planning paperwork required for a project of this scale has inevitably revealed a fair amount of hard detail. The proposed attraction building measures approximately 71 metres in length, 46 metres in width, and 19.4 metres in height — for context, that’s a footprint broadly comparable to the main façade-fronted section of Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s Valhalla dark water ride, giving a useful sense of scale even without knowing exactly what will fill it. The project carries an estimated cost of around £12.5 million, and significantly, the planning documents rule out any substantial excavation below ground level at the site — meaning the maximum feasible height for any drop within the ride is unlikely to exceed roughly 50 feet. That’s a meaningful constraint for anyone speculating about what kind of coaster experience Project Horizon might ultimately deliver: this isn’t shaping up to be a towering, drop-heavy thrill machine, but something working within a more contained, indoor footprint.
A Site With Buried History of Its Own One of the more fascinating details buried in the planning documentation ties this brand-new attraction directly back to some genuinely ancient history. The Project Horizon site sits bounded by the underground remains of Bunbury Hillfort, a scheduled ancient monument — the very same Iron Age hillfort that once occupied high ground on the wider Alton Towers estate long before the Talbot family, let alone Merlin Entertainments, ever had anything to do with this land. It’s a genuinely striking piece of continuity: a park built on top of centuries of layered history is now planning its next major thrill ride on ground that connects directly back to some of the very earliest evidence of human activity on the site. The location also sits around 65 metres from the listed Flag Tower, a historic structure that’s remained largely inaccessible to the public since Coaster Corner itself closed back in 1991. And in a condition that speaks to how seriously the park’s heritage obligations are taken alongside its commercial development, before Project Horizon can actually open to the public, Alton Towers must first submit and gain approval for a formal Management Plan covering the Orangery, also known as the Quarry Greenhouse, located within the resort’s historic gardens — including detail on urgent repair works and a long-term preservation strategy. It’s a condition that isn’t unusual for larger developments at Alton Towers, and it nicely illustrates how new ride construction here is repeatedly tangled up with genuine obligations to preserve the estate’s much older heritage.
The Long and Winding Road: A Timeline of Delays Understanding just how long this project has already dragged on helps explain why enthusiast patience has worn thin. The earliest public signal came in September 2022, when Alton Towers held a public exhibition event to present emerging proposals for a new indoor attraction on the site, at that point still tied to the former Alton Mouse coaster’s old footprint within Coaster Corner. A full planning application followed a few weeks later, in November 2022. The application then went through the standard statutory consultation process, during which a number of concerns were raised by various parties — including, notably, objections around the proposed external colour of the building itself. Despite that pushback, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s Planning Applications Committee voted to approve the application on 16th February 2023, in what planning officers themselves described as a complex and finely balanced case. The deciding factor in the park’s favour was the significant weight given to Alton Towers’ local and national economic contribution, and the role Project Horizon was expected to play in supporting that continued economic impact. From there, though, progress slowed dramatically. The ride had originally been expected to open alongside the rest of the park in mid-March 2025 — a target that came and went without construction properly beginning. Through 2025, updates were sparse but steady: by December 2025, Alton Towers had formally notified the council that it had complied with site contamination and soil management conditions attached to the permission. Then, in a further sign of movement, planning documents filed in early 2026 confirmed the Environment Agency had assessed the risk of water contamination associated with the site as “low” — clearing the way, at least on paper, for groundworks to finally proceed. As of the most recent tracking from dedicated enthusiast sites, that’s roughly where things stand: technically cleared to begin groundworks, but without visible large-scale construction activity yet reported on site.
Why It Keeps Getting Delayed The honest answer to “why has this taken so long” has less to do with the ride itself and considerably more to do with Merlin Entertainments’ broader financial position. Reports have pointed to a revised investment strategy at Merlin driven by genuine cash-flow difficulties, with the company having faced credit rating downgrades as its overall capital expenditure came under scrutiny from loan markets as unsustainable. Former Merlin chief executive Scott O’Neil has been quoted describing it as “increasingly difficult” to justify further major UK investment, specifically in the context of the company having already committed significant capital to two other major recent projects: the Nemesis Reborn rebuild at Alton Towers itself, and Hyperia, the record-breaking coaster at sister park Thorpe Park. Put simply, Project Horizon appears to have been caught in a genuine corporate spending squeeze, competing for limited capital against other major investments the wider Merlin group had already committed to delivering.
That’s a useful context for managing expectations going forward. This isn’t a project that’s been quietly cancelled or abandoned — the planning permission remains live and compliance conditions are actively being worked through — but it’s also clearly not been treated as an urgent priority relative to Merlin’s other big-ticket commitments across its wider UK portfolio.
What Kind of Ride Could It Actually Be? With official details still scarce, the enthusiast community has spent years picking over every available clue to speculate about what Project Horizon might actually turn out to be. The height and excavation constraints revealed in the planning documents rule out anything resembling a towering, drop-heavy thrill coaster, pointing instead toward something more contained and indoor-experience-focused, likely leaning on theming, pacing, and atmosphere rather than raw height and speed statistics. Some fan speculation has focused on manufacturer Rocky Mountain Construction’s newer “Wild Moose” family coaster concept as a design that might plausibly fit within the available floorspace, though there’s genuine scepticism about whether RMC’s typically larger, more sprawling track designs would comfortably suit a building of this footprint without some serious compromises. Adding a further, more tantalising thread to the rumour mill, retired legendary ride designer John Wardley — the same figure behind the original Nemesis — has reportedly been discussing impressive new technology under development for a project referred to as “SW9,” which some fans have connected directly to Project Horizon, based on Alton Towers’ historical pattern of internally naming major coaster projects as sequential “Secret Weapons.” None of this has been officially confirmed by the park, and it’s worth treating it as informed speculation rather than settled fact.
What does seem clear, based purely on the scale of investment and the building’s substantial footprint, is that whatever eventually fills this space is intended to be a genuinely significant new attraction rather than a minor filler ride — consultants working on the planning submission projected the new attraction would add approximately 150,000 additional visitors to the park annually once operational, a meaningful number that underlines just how much commercial weight is riding on this project eventually being delivered.
Why This Particular Site Matters So Much Beyond the ride itself, there’s a genuine strategic logic to why Alton Towers has targeted this specific, long-dormant corner of the park. Coaster Corner has sat essentially unused for over three decades, a significant chunk of prime, already-serviced park real estate that’s contributed nothing to the visitor experience since the early 1990s. Bringing it back into active use, particularly with an indoor attraction less exposed to the seasonal and weather-related limitations of an outdoor coaster, represents a genuinely smart use of existing space rather than requiring the park to find and develop an entirely new area from scratch. It’s also worth noting the site’s proximity to other underused or recently vacated areas — the former Alton Towers Dungeon building sits right alongside it, and the wider south-western section of the park has seen several attractions come and go in recent years without much major reinvestment. A successful Project Horizon could plausibly act as an anchor investment that revitalises this whole corner of the resort, rather than existing purely as a standalone attraction in isolation.
When Might It Actually Open? Based on the most recent planning filings and the construction timeframes outlined within them, estimates for a 12 to 18 month build period once groundworks properly begin suggest the 2027 season is currently the most realistic target — and even that comes with the significant caveat that groundworks appear not to have visibly started in earnest as of the most recent enthusiast tracking. Given the project’s history of slipping past previous target dates, treating 2027 as an optimistic best-case scenario, rather than a confirmed date, seems like the sensible approach for anyone hoping to ride Project Horizon sooner rather than later.
Should You Actually Get Your Hopes Up? It’s worth being honest about where this leaves things. Project Horizon has full planning permission, a genuinely significant confirmed budget, and a location rich with both commercial logic and, fittingly, buried historical continuity stretching back to the Iron Age origins of the wider Alton Towers estate. On paper, everything points toward this eventually becoming a genuinely major new addition to the park. But “eventually” has already stretched across more than three years since the project was first publicly revealed, with the underlying cause of the delay — Merlin’s broader financial constraints — showing no clear sign of resolving overnight. For enthusiasts who’ve watched this story unfold through years of planning documents, compliance filings, and quiet council notices without a single visible piece of steel yet appearing on site, a healthy dose of patience, tempered with cautious optimism rather than firm expectation, remains the sensible way to follow this one. It’s genuinely coming — the paperwork trail makes that much clear — but exactly when remains, appropriately enough given the project’s own codename, still somewhere out on the horizon.
Quick Reference: Project Horizon at Alton Towers • Location: The former “Coaster Corner” site, entrance between the former Alton Towers Dungeon and The World of David Walliams • Confirmed: An indoor rollercoaster, per official planning documents • Building size: Approximately 71m long, 46m wide, 19.4m tall • Estimated cost: £12.5 million • Height constraint: No significant below-ground excavation permitted, limiting any drop to roughly 50 feet maximum • First publicly revealed: September 2022 public exhibition • Planning permission granted: 16th February 2023 • Originally expected to open: Mid-March 2025 (missed) • Current earliest realistic opening: 2027 season, based on a 12-18 month construction window once groundworks properly begin • Cause of delay: Merlin Entertainments’ wider financial constraints and competing investment priorities, including Nemesis Reborn and Thorpe Park’s Hyperia • Nearby historic features: Bordered by the underground remains of the Bunbury Hillfort scheduled monument; requires a preservation Management Plan for the nearby Orangery (Quarry Greenhouse) before opening • Fan speculation: Possibly linked to a project internally referred to as “SW9,” with some connection rumoured to legendary designer John Wardley — unconfirmed by Alton Towers • Projected impact: Estimated to add around 150,000 additional annual visitors once open