A Kuwaiti millionaire tried to build a Disneyland rip-off. Then it all went wrong.

The Swanscombe Peninsula doesn’t look like much. Sitting near the Kent–London border, its 500-plus acres of marshland and abandoned industrial sites were described to me as being “like something out of Silent Witness”. But in 2012, this desolate outcrop almost became the site of an attraction that would’ve changed the face of the capital: the London Resort, also known as the “Dartmouth Disneyland”.

The subject of non-stop news coverage upon its announcement, the £3.5bn plan was ambitious. It featured a theme park 113 times the size of Wembley, sporting a castle, roller coasters based on Mission Impossible and Doctor Who and a sprawling water-park; a 5,500-room hotel; restaurants themed around both The Godfather and Victorian palaeontologist Mary Anning; an e-sports arena and more. Designed to be the biggest of its kind in Europe, it was supported by hundreds of millions in overseas capital, directly backed and funded by the government and partnered with broadcasters including Paramount, the BBC and ITV.

At its core was a young Kuwaiti real estate multi-millionaire called Abdulla Al-Humaidi, who was prepared to sink tens of millions of his fortune into the resort. This project could have become his already-influential family’s grandest achievement. But last year, the company behind the London Resort was forced into liquidation, and its young leader, having declared bankruptcy, was in court facing accusations of fraud and creating “sham” investments.

Using court documents, council records and interviews with many of those involved in the saga, we put together the inside story of what went wrong — and how leaping spiders, taxpayer-funded trips to Disneyland and a man nicknamed “The Gerbil” all became part of its downfall.

Five councillors go on a trip to Disneyland

In 2010, having just finished a medical degree in Dublin, Al-Humaidi came to London. Broad shouldered, with dark stubble and a white smile, the 24 year old was looking to start a UK wing of his family’s real estate empire, and had set his sights on a resort-style theme park. Disney currently makes $36.2bn from in-person experiences like parks, over half its overall revenue, yet “there was nothing in London, one of the most visited cities globally with a big population,” Al-Humaidi later explained in an interview with Kent Online.