Back on the piste: Folkestone’s plastic ski slope returns, and the story of Britain’s “dry slope” era

A seaside ski slope built from swimming pool rubble is set to reopen. Its story says a lot about how artificial skiing has fared in Britain, the Low Countries and Japan.

For two years, the slope behind Folkestone Sports Centre has sat idle. Now it is coming back.

Folkestone Sports Centre closed suddenly in July 2024 when its operator went into administration, and more than 100 jobs were lost. The Sports Trust, which runs other venues in the town, took over the site in 2025 with backing from businessman Sir Roger De Haan. The new partner for the outdoor facilities is Boonies, an adventure provider that is leaving Betteshanger Country Park near Deal. It plans to restore the dry ski slope and high ropes course and add a new obstacle course. The company says it is committing “extensive financial resources” to the work. No timetable has been published.

A slope built from a swimming pool

The slope has a modest origin. Local ski instructor Hilary Casey recalls that Princess Anne opened the centre in September 1972, and that the slope was piled up from soil dug out for the swimming pool, as many were then. It was the first dry slope in the region, and it had teething problems at the start. The land had a civic history. The site of just over 11 acres was part of the Radnor Estate and is understood to have been gifted by Lord Radnor in the 1960s. The centre opened in 1972.

Casey described the centre as a market leader and recalled that it ran summer holiday courses for children, which was “unheard of” at the time. Those courses, she said, were useful to parents and made skiing accessible to everyone. Later additions included a toboggan run, partly funded through a live TV show, and the SkyWalk high ropes course, which opened in spring 2021.

Another local voice, Peter Thomas, recalls school groups from Harvey Grammar learning to ski there. He says it was formative for many young skiers, some of whom went on to ski professionally. He remembers the slope as always busy in the evenings and at weekends.

The cost of the closure shows in the Folkestone Ski Racing Club, which has used the slope since the 1980s. Its chair, Jane Michotte, says the club has largely fallen apart since losing the slope, and the nearest alternative, in Chatham, was hard on those who stayed. Reopening is welcome news, but she says it will take time. Coaches and instructors need requalifying and members need bringing back together.

Britain: from Torquay to a thinning network

Folkestone was part of a national boom. The first permanent dry slope in Britain opened in October 1963 at Barton Hall, Torquay, and it is still in use. Holiday-camp boss Fred Pontin was persuaded to install it, and the surface was Dendix matting, designed in Britain and manufactured in Chepstow. More than 120 slopes followed across Britain, and around half remain. Perhaps over a million Britons learnt to ski on them, and most of the current British ski team started on dry slopes.

50 years of dry slope skiing

The 1980s package-holiday boom fed the second wave. Dry slopes sprang up around London, notably at Hillingdon and Beckton. Sheffield Ski Village opened in 1988 and was billed as Europe’s biggest artificial slope. The Olympians it produced show the system worked. Skier James Woods learned in Sheffield, and snowboarder Katie Ormerod made her first turns at Halifax. Sheffield’s ending was grim. The site declined, then fires destroyed key buildings. One commentator wrote that after a quarter century of skiing history, the city looked to have no future in the sport.

Closures have been common. The Bracknell centre was one of the few slopes with its own chairlift, and it also closed. Surviving slopes face competition from indoor real-snow centres, where the snow is artificial but real, rather than the plastic of a dry slope. The surfaces are an acquired taste. British slopes are usually covered in Dendix, with its toothbrush-like bristles, or in Snowflex, which is more like a continuous carpet of bristles. Both need near-constant water spraying.

The Folkestone relaunch is therefore a contrarian bet. A plastic slope with cheap lessons, a club pipeline and a rope course alongside may be a sturdier model than a giant standalone ski village.

Benelux: the dome took over

The Low Countries have followed a different path. Their plastic slopes began in the same 1960s wave, but dry slopes first appeared in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands as skiing became popular, and the indoor snow hall has since taken the lead.

In the Netherlands the flagship is SnowWorld Landgraaf. It is the largest indoor ski hall in Europe, built on an artificial hill, with the longest indoor run in the Benelux. SnowWorld Zoetermeer claims the steepest indoor slope in Europe. Dry slopes survive in niches. Outdoor Valley Wintersport, between Rotterdam and The Hague, offers snow-free skiing outdoors. There are also novelty formats. Snowlimits in Groningen uses inclined conveyor belts for an endless slope.

Belgium shows the transition. Casablanca in Belgium claims to have converted a dry slope to indoor snow in 1988. More recently, SnowWorld opened a site near Antwerp, taking over the former “Aspen” slope, as a training ground for athletes. A Belgian sports official said the country produces top athletes despite its low terrain because they can train intensively close to home.

Japan: the world’s biggest bet, and its costly failure

Japan took indoor skiing furthest. Sayama, near Tokyo, is regarded as the world’s oldest surviving indoor snow centre. It opened in 1959, and snow-making machines run above an artificial slope surface that is exposed if the snow melts.

The peak was SSAWS in Funabashi, Chiba (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter Snow). Mitsui built it for about US$400 million, and it opened in July 1993, just after Japan’s asset bubble ended. Visitor forecasts proved too optimistic. It closed in September 2002 and was later demolished for Japan’s first large-format IKEA. Dubai’s Ski Dubai was reportedly inspired by it. More than 20 indoor snow centres have operated in Japan over about 30 years, though most had closed by 2005.

Plastic slopes live on in Japan too. A brush-surface slope at Wing Hills Shirotori in Gifu is listed by Guinness as the longest dry ski slope, at 923.7 m, unveiled in 2011. Newer claims may have overtaken it. One source puts the world’s longest dry slope in Russia at about 1,130 m.

What it adds up to

Folkestone’s slope is a survivor of the 1960s-80s dry-slope era, a time when skiing was made cheap and local. SSAWS shows what happens when the model is scaled up at huge cost. Folkestone’s revival, with a rope course, an obstacle course and a ski club, is the small-scale answer.