Briton Engineering, which designs and manufactures artificial snow slopes, is planning to complete its first major project in China this December despite a 12 month delay.

Based in Scholes, near Huddersfield, the company is working wiith Shanghai Vankoo Sports Management Co. to create a combined main and nursery snowsports slope at Global Harbour in Shanghai, using Briton Engineering’s Snowflex surface technology. The project follows the installation of a Snowflex training slope at Vankoo in Shanghai in 2018. Briton Engineering believes that the 19,000 sq ft synthetic snowsports slope at Wufengxi Park will be the first major project in the country surfaced with the Snowflex surface system.

With construction due to begin in early October, the facility is expected to open this December, although installation had originally been planned for November 2018. However, delays with funding meant the installation is later than expected.

Briton Engineering will train up to 10 Chinese engineers on how to install the Snowflex technology themselves. Shanghai Vankoo Sports Management will manage and operate the slope.

Terry Di Stasi, Briton Engineering’s director of business development, said that the company was thrilled to be involved in such a prestigious new development and that he hoped it would further develop and grow snowsports in China.

The aim of the slope is to promote skiing and snowboarding as mainstream sporting activities, supporting the Chinese government’s aim to get 300 million people active in the sports ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022.

Managing director Brian Thomas, who invented Snowflex, said he hopes the project will lead to further Chinese contracts. “The language barrier makes China a difficult country to do business in,” he said. “But we’d like to do more work out there.”