Full plans are now available on the Cheshire west and Chester planning website for the grasslands area, just search for Chester zoo.
Some points from the new grassland plans, new aardvark enclosure and meercats. Vulture avery, flamingoes in the wetland Avery. Paths to current meercats closed off. Also the male giraffes are off show to the main zoo, only viewable from the overnight accommodation. New entrance path for Islands over current bongo enclosure. Also a indoor play area next to entrance restaurant. Looks like rhinos and hunting dogs will be off show for a while, whilst construction takes place.
https://pa.cheshirewestandchester.g...s.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=POKHXCTEN1F00 Some files take a while to download.
Reading into the plans they suggest the zoo will have red spitting cobra in the new mixed species house.
Bit underwelmed by the plans. More the style of buildings...very much all square/rectangular shaped. The giraffe house has no character, after Madagascar area was expecting a few fake acacia trees, maybe the giraffe house disgused as one. Don't think the drawings help, but then artitects plan drawings are usually a mess.
One thing I noticed in the newly released plans for Grasslands, tucked away on the map on page 79 of the Full Design document, is that the enclosure attached to the restaurant will supposedly contain bat-eared fox, mongoose and ground squirrel. Rather intriguing...
From what I’ve read a lot of the Zoo could be closed with the new Grasslands development. Would that be fair accurate?
Red Spitting Cobra seems an odd choice for an establishment that has taken a hard path away from having many hot herps. Must be far more difficult to provide care for a venomous snake that spits as well. I would be glad for the addition of this snake species but the choice would really surprise me. It seems to me that the grasslands development would mean a large area of the Zoo would be closed to the public. Would that be a fair or accurate guess?
Basically everything in the west half of the zoo from Monkey Islands up to Islands. Whether they keep tasavo aviary open, they could do but probably easier to close that path.
It will be the area that's being developed, so probably closed from the monorail station near the entrance and closed off around the island exit path.
It'll have to be a fair chunk, yes. On the face of it, all of West Zoo other than Islands and the strip between Flag Lane and the path from the zoo entrance to the Islands exit (monkeys, Asian Plains, bats, bears and not much else!). It's possible it could be phased so that, for instance, the Black Rhinos remain accessible for more of the time.
Maybe they didn't have the facilities or enclosure to hold the animals before in a safe way, with this new build, it enables them to plan and build something suitable.
The monorail will go as it currently goes through the proposed vulture Avery and across the savannah section, causing an issue for the giraffess.
Might try and get a visit in soon and then wait until the development is finished. With Monsoon forest closed, old lion enclosure soon to be empty/redeveloped and west side of the zoo closed for redevelopment then I’d question the value of a family ticket price in the next few years.
This is expected to be re-opened by next summer; it should be open again before the Grasslands area starts - remember the planning application has only just gone in for the latter - they don't even have approval yet. This will only be empty once the lions are in the new exhibit - there'll probably be a few days to a couple of weeks with the lions offshow at most then after that they'll just be in the new exhibit not the old one. This will almost certainly only happen after the above are completed. That said, if you're travelling from Douglas I can understand waiting for it to be done once it's started. Can't remember if I've been told this before but does anyone know if the offshow holding area is complete yet? This will need to be ready to accept the antelope, zebras and so on (and the wild dogs?) before work on Grasslands can be started.
No it's being worked on, but a few months I imagine till that's complete, so towards the end of the year, when they will then start work on grassland, as they can move the animals that need moving out.
So when are we actually expecting work on grasslands to start? It sounds like it may significantly alter the character of the zoo, and that a visit whilst work is ongoing may not be the best experience. So as an occasional visitor I, much like redstarsmith, would like to see the zoo before the work starts again!
