page_title: Surf Snowdonia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Surf Snowdonia / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Surf Snowdonia, looking west
context_page_description: Surf Snowdonia is an artificial wave pool at Dolgarrog in the Conwy valley, north Wales, owned by Conwy Adventure Leisure Ltd. It is the world's first commercial artificial surfing lake.
  The site cost a total of £12 million and opened in August 2015.
context_section_description: In 2007 Dolgarrog Aluminium closed, and a group was established to decide what should be on the site in its place. The following year the site was purchased by Ainscough Johnston, a Lancashire-based strategic land company, whose initial plans were for housing – including affordable housing – and for leisure and amenity uses. 
  Plans for a surfing attraction were unveiled in 2013, with Conwy Adventure Leisure announcing that it was submitting a planning application to create the venue. The company predicted the facility would "attract 67–70,000 visitors [a year]". Conwy Adventure Leisure received planning permission in August 2013 and in December said it had invested over £7 million in the project. The park gained final approval from councillors in April 2014, with construction beginning in May. In June the project received £4 million in funding from the Welsh Government.
  Much initial decontamination work had to be undertaken, following a century of use as an industrial site, and over 25,000 cubic metres of on-site material was crushed and re-used during the construction, including the recycling of 400 tonnes of steel, cast iron and copper.
  Development of the site was also complicated by the fact that it is adjacent to a Site of Special Scientific Interest, there is a high water table, and it is located on the flood plain of the River Conwy. A total of 6.3 miles of piling was driven into the ground in order to stabilize it.
  In April 2015 a fire broke out on the construction site, causing some damage to a tower. The site opened to the public on 1 August 2015, having cost a total of £12 million. It served 14,000 people in its first two weeks of operation, including 3,500 people who surfed in the pool.
caption: The lagoon at Surf Snowdonia, looking west
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