The key figure behind the multi-billion pound London Resort project dubbed the “Dartford Disneyland” says the long-running saga has “destroyed my life”.

Speaking exclusively to KentOnline - and for the first time publicly about the £2.5bn scheme - Kuwaiti businessman Dr Abdulla Al-Humaidi said it had “ruined my reputation and left me bankrupt” and slammed the nation’s planning system as “broken”.

Yet the tycoon insists the project remains alive, and has put a price-tag on how much he believes it will cost to build, based on what has so far been achieved, and make it a reality.

But he admits despite investing millions of his own money into the project he does not expect to see any financial return even if it does finally take off.

In a wide-ranging and brutally honest interview, the man who is also the former chairman of Ebbsfleet United, Football Club speaks of his anger over the enormous cost of preparing the planning documents and admits he has been facing legal action from friends and investors in Kuwait who even accused him of creating a “fictitious” project to extract money.

Such has been the fall-out of the legal challenges, he has been unable to return to his homeland for fear of being arrested and imprisoned, despite the bulk of such claims being rejected.

Now the 38-year-old father-of-two wants to set the record straight.

He explained: “I am a very private person - I do not seek the limelight. But some disgruntled creditors of the London Resort are saying falsehoods about me and the truth needs to be told.”

The London Resort scheme, first announced in 2012, promised a Disneyland-rivalling entertainment complex to be built on former cement works on the Swanscombe Peninsula.

Featuring a host of state-of-the-art rides, hotels and venues, it was designed to deliver to the South East a leisure facility to put the region on a par with the likes of France and the United States.

It promised tens of thousands of jobs, a massive shot in the arm for the county’s visitor economy and the transformation of the peninsula site.

But 12 years after it was first announced, not a spade has entered the ground, the company behind it is in a state of limbo due to a legal challenge by the entertainment giant it was once a partner of, and creditors have been left dramatically out of pocket as it struggles financially.

In addition, businesses on the peninsula have been left with a cloud of uncertainty hanging heavy over them.

Reflecting on his involvement over the last 10 years - Dr Abdulla resigned from its board in 2022 but his brother remains one of its two remaining directors - he explained: “It has taken its toll.

“Reputationally, I suffered a lot. I lost a lot of money personally - a lot of money. And I couldn't keep up with that, hence my bankruptcy.

“It hasn't been an easy ride. I'm pretty sure it hasn’t been easy for a lot of other stakeholders.”

Dr Abdulla was declared bankrupt last November, a consequence of growing financial pressures as a result of the long-running saga.

Assuming there are no last-minute hiccups, the restrictions bankruptcy imposes will be lifted and the status expires next month.

London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) has been in what is known as a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) since calling in the administrators in March 2023 having burned through £100m and with little concrete to, so far, show for it.

The same applies to the KEH Group - the European investment arm of Al-Humaidi’s Kuwaiti-based family. His deep-pocketed, highly successful family business expands across a broad portfolio of businesses in its homeland, built on several generations of success.

He adds: “The London Resort vision and the project is sound. When we first got involved you would have hoped by now, people were going through the gates and having a nice time.

“But no, it hasn’t been kind to me.”

He had hoped the London Resort would be a “slam dunk” and sunk £40million of his family’s fortune into the project initially, having been originally told he would need to invest “just a few million”.

He explains: “I opened my office here in the UK for my family in 2010. Shortly afterwards, I came across someone who was senior in the entertainment industry. He told me that the best performing assets during the 2008 financial crash in their portfolio were the entertainment assets.

“And this struck me. There was nothing in London, one of the most visited cities globally with a big population.

“So I looked at other places in the South East and identified a location.

“But in 2012, Tony Sefton and Paramount made a joint announcement that they were doing something on the Swanscombe Peninsula.”

Tony Sefton first dreamed up the idea and set up LRCH to pursue his vision. He left the project in 2015.

“It made sense,” adds Dr Al-Humaidi, who studied medicine for five years in Ireland before heading the family business in London, “because the location was much better. It was closer to London; 500-600 acres on the Thames and the Paramount name would attract people.

“So I approached Tony along with the previous shareholders and struck a deal with them where we partly buy some of their shares and partly inject capital in the business in exchange for a bigger holding and that's how it started.

“I'd say probably I was too naïve at the time, but some advisers did tell me it would cost a couple of million. They said they were speaking with the government to get fast-track planning, something called a Development Consent Order.”

Declared the first private-funded Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project - a system supposedly set up to fast-track major projects such as airports, motorways or, topically, the Lower Thames Crossing - schemes given the status are ruled upon by the minister of state rather than local councils.

The reality, though, is that many schemes face enormous planning costs, extended waits and relentless legal challenges from vested interests as a consequence.

In order to proceed - much like the Lower Thames Crossing - the government minister must grant what is known as a Development Consent Order (DCO). This gives formal planning permission and provides the security to push ahead with securing the funding and the actual building of the scheme.

“What they didn't explain,” explains the Kuwaiti businessman, “was the amount of work that's required for the DCO is much more than the normal planning application.

“But that is how it was presented to me and they said it probably cost a few million; between £3-5m - £10m maximum. I went back to my family and convinced them and we put in the first batch of money.

“But then once that has gone in something would come up on the environmental or on the transport side of things, or on the whatever it was and things were costly.

“Some of that was spent on land purchases and option agreements. So about £11-12m was spent on the peninsula option agreement [a rolling agreement with the landowners giving it the option to buy the site once the DCO was approved]. Some was spent on acquiring other freeholds as well.

“So once I think around £40m of my family's money has gone in, they've reached a point where they said we're not putting any more money in.”

By this point, around 2015-2016, the investment was so great, he felt obliged to keep pushing on with it.

As public opinion slipped from excitement to apathy, the furnace of money needed to pay for the consultants, the planning experts and everything else showed little sign of cooling.

They are far from alone. The estimated cost of preparing the DCO for the Lower Thames Crossing has been estimated to be anywhere between £300-800m.

He explains: “Usually, NSIPS were all government projects and used to take five to six years - or 10 in the case of the Lower Thames Crossing - for the DCO to be submitted, so it was within normal time frames.

“But when we were speaking to the public, these timeframes don't make sense to people, and I think that's where, within a couple of years, people started becoming anti-development because they couldn't see this happening and obviously they didn't know what was happening in the background.”

So, in need of more cash to feed the machine. he extended the opportunity to friends and family friends in Kuwait. He raised another £40m.

But it was here that a culture clash would prove highly costly.

“In the Middle East,” he explains, “there is no such thing as planning permission and things move swiftly in construction. Areas are zoned or pre-zoned so everyone knows what can, and cannot, be built there. And people were used to things turning around quickly.

“Investors I raised money from grew tired of waiting without planning being granted. Some had cheques as a guarantee of their investment.

In Kuwait, if someone bounces a cheque, it is classified as a misdemeanour and you get an automatic prison sentence which is reversible on payment of said cheque. It is designed to put pressure on the person who owes you the money.”

The punishment is, however, instantly revoked if payment is made.

“By 2019, six years into the scheme, friends of friends started growing anxious and some had submitted their cheques to put pressure on me to deliver results,” he adds.

At this stage, the businessman took control of the project in a bid to prove those doubting their investment wrong, using his own money to settle as many of the cheques as possible.

“Some of the investors who put money in,” he explains, “had never invested abroad out of Kuwait in their life. And because some obviously didn't speak English, some didn't understand the complexities of how things work here.

“Because I had so much conviction this scheme would be a slam dunk I put it on myself and said I'm happy to give you these guarantee cheques. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that. But again, it's a lesson learned.

“So I probably issued 12 to 13 cheques and when things started delaying, these investors started presenting those cheques to the courts in Kuwait.

“And they're getting an arrest warrant for me and they're getting the automatic sentence until those cheques were paid.”

All but three have now been resolved and he’s confident of settling those in 2025.

London Resort eventually applied for its DCO in December 2020 following a lengthy consultation period. But shortly after it was validated, Natural England, the government’s own advisor on the natural environment, declared the peninsula site as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

The status was granted “in recognition of its national importance for plants, geology, birds and invertebrates”.

It is also one of just two areas where the critically endangered distinguished jumping spider is found.

But the decision left London Resort bosses facing an enormous dilemma. An SSSI does not prohibit development but it does need to be addressed.

It also stunned bosses who had worked closely with Natural England on the project.

As Dr Al-Humaidi reflects: “I had been working with them for the last seven or eight years and couldn't understand why this had come through.”

Asked this week as to why they had not flagged up the issue prior to the DCO being submitted, a spokesperson for Natural England would say only: “The decision to designate Swanscombe Peninsula as an SSSI in 2021 was the culmination of extensive work by Natural England staff.

“The evidence for SSSI status was carefully assessed and we worked with local people who had an interest in the site, including businesses, landowners and developers.

“Natural England is committed to maintaining these important relationships and working in collaboration to find solutions for the wildlife to thrive alongside the current and future uses of this special site.”

Their only option was to withdraw the DCO they had worked so hard to file in March 2022 and rework the project.

Dr Al-Humaidi stepped down from the board just two weeks before the withdrawal was made public after being blamed “for matters outside his control” and stepped away to give investors “comfort” that the new direction of the company was not under his control.

People started calling me and saying the London Resort doesn't exist - they say how can £60-80m be spent on something and there's nothing to show for it? We don't believe you.

It hasn’t progressed since.

“I got more involved when things started getting heated back home,” he explains. “People started calling me and saying the London Resort doesn't exist. They say ‘how can £60-80m be spent on something and there's nothing to show for it? We don't believe you.

“We don't believe a spider can stop a development of this size. Or some plants or vegetation. We can't comprehend what you are saying’. You try to explain to them.

“On the back of that I had 15 cases of fraud brought against me in Kuwait, all of them saying that the company doesn't exist, it's a fictitious project.

“But you could look at our accounts and see where the money was going, many of them blue chip, household industry names when it comes to planning and development.”

All but one fraud case has now been dismissed. The sole remaining one apparently continuing because the judge in Kuwait did not understand how the Land Registry operates in the UK.

While the remaining cases are being tackled, the prison threat has made it impossible for him to return to his homeland for the “last couple of years” he says.

But it wasn’t just his personal financial situation taking a hit.

As part of the CVA, 75% of creditors must agree to a deal where - more often than not - they receive a small percentage of the monies owed or, in the London Resort case, a promise of future shares in exchange.

This was passed, but Paramount - which originally was going to lend its name to the park, but later withdrew that and offered, instead, the right to use the name of some of its biggest movies for rides and experiences - voted against.

And then it launched its own legal challenge.

It is due to be heard the High Court in April 2025, a date which effectively puts the project in limbo until resolved.

But the agony of the last decade has been compounded by his frustrations at the length of time and the money involved in getting a major project off the ground.

My personal view is I think the planning system in this country is broken

“My personal view,” he says, “is I think the planning system in this country is broken and that's why a lot of institutional money doesn't invest in pre-planning.

“During my time with London Resort I've met probably 50 to 60 institutions, from international banks, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, all of them said they would invest once you have planning in place.

“I think the planning system in the UK needs to be streamlined and for government departments to start talking to one another.

“On the London Resort you have one department wanting something and then another one wanted something completely different. Just managing the relationship between the two was problematic.”

So can the London Resort, seemingly moribund, still continue? And, perhaps more pertinently, will it still be in Kent given all the hurdles it has faced?

One thing is for certain, Dr Abdulla will not rejoin its board, although he will remain as a consultant on the project given his close involvement in it over the last decade.

“I think sometimes emotions get in play,” he explains, “and I think the future of London Resort will be better without me having any sort of lead.

“But I’m happy to support the company and lend my nine years of experience to the shareholders, the directors and other stakeholders.

“As for its future plans, I don't know the answer,” he admits, “because it would be down to the directors to answer that.

“But I think Kent has a large population, is very well connected to London and for international tourists. It just makes sense.”

And what of the fact the land is currently up for sale?

“I don't know if investors connected to the project are looking at it or not. But at the end of the day the DCO and NSIP status gives the company compulsory purchase powers.

I think a DCO would probably cost a minimum of £50 million from where the company is at the stage.

“So I wouldn't call it the end of the company [if the land is sold].

“I don't know what the company is planning in terms of size and location, but I think a DCO would probably cost a minimum of £50million from where the company is at this stage.

“But I think the returns would be very lucrative for whomever takes this forward.”

Securing the relevant permissions would then allow further investors to come on board to actually build and subsequently operate the park. But all of this remains some years off, should it ever become a reality.

As for efforts by conservation groups to have the NSIP status withdrawn?

“I think it's a difficult one for government because on the back of this status, close to £100million has been invested.

“I think the best thing for these conservation groups would be to have a conversation with the London Resort to see what is important and what is not in terms of the site and reach an amicable solution that both parties can live with.

“Calling for that status to be revoked, I think the government lawyers would come up with issues where it just makes it difficult for them to do so.”

And what of the businesses on the peninsula who remain unsure of what the future holds?

He explains: “During my time at the company, we would have treated every business owner fairly. They would have been provided with relocation alternatives, relocation costs.

“If businesses weren't able to relocate they would have been treated fairly in terms of payments. The company did realise it was displacing a number of businesses, some of which have been there for a long time.”

However, many businesses say they’ve been ill-treated and have struggled in the shadow of the park’s prospect over the last decade or so.

They have been have been joined by environmentalists in calling for the government to revoke the NSIP status.

Another victim of his bankruptcy - a condition of which prevents you from being a company director - was Ebbsfleet United, the club he once owned and was chairman of.

His cousin has taken his position on the board but he insists he still follows the Fleet and attends home games.

“My only interest in the club now,” he says, “is going there and watching football matches as a fan.

“I got hooked on the club and I do follow them similar to any of the Ebbsfleet fans.

“I know my family are committed to Ebbsfleet. They've been there for the last 11 years and I think there is no intention of leaving any time soon.

“I like Kent. It's a lovely place to live, to do business and the people are nice.”

It remains to be seen however if the London Resort will ever finally flourish in our own backyard.