Coloured asphalt for busy adventure park

A £13.5m development scheme to build a ‘Dragon Lakes Adventure Village’ at this large Haven holiday park in Gwynedd, Wales required large areas of hard surfacing. This was a large site including an indoor swimming pool, new adventure park and nine bar and restaurant venues. The new surfaces would be in constant use by large numbers of visitors, particularly during the peak summer season. They would need to withstand regular pedestrian traffic and light vehicle use by staff and delivery vehicles. The holiday park included a number of modern luxury lodges, so the aesthetic appearance of the new surface was critical. Work would also need to be completed quickly to allow it to be opened in time for the main holiday season.

Tarmac’s ULTICOLOUR coloured asphalt was chosen in a light buff limestone colour. Using a high performance clear binder, ULTICOLOUR offers brighter colours than conventional asphalts. It also uses colour matched aggregates that complement the chosen pigment. This delivers deeper colours that last, despite surface wear. ULTICOLOUR is also highly durable, chosen for other busy tourist locations including the Adventure Park Snowdonia in North Wales and the iconic promenades at Blackpool, Morecambe and Whitley Bay. ULTICOLOUR offers architects and designers a range of colours that complement different environments, from bright red and greens to more neutral buff, natural and grey colours.

Around 200 tonnes of ULTICOLOUR light buff asphalt was supplied to the Hafan Y Mor site and laid by the surfacing contractor Tarways. The finished surface was smooth, even, low maintenance and safe for the clients of the holiday park. The light buff complemented both the design of the adventure village and the coastal setting in a far better way than more utilitarian alternatives like conventional black asphalts, block pavers or concretes. The client was delighted with the finish and after learning about ULTICOLOUR’s performance on other sites they were confident that it would perform well on their holiday park for years to come.