STAND by for style wars in Yorkshire.

shopping outlet specialist Freeport Leisure, which owns Hornsea Freeport Shopping, near Bridlington, today announced another blockbuster designer village which is likely to cut right across the bows of another planned designer shopping development in York.

Freeport Village Yorkshire will occupy 38 acres of the 400-acre former Glasshoughton colliery site, near Castleford, for shopping - an investment which alone will cost £46 million, plus about £100 million more for an hotel, housing, warehousing and entertainment on the remainder of the land.

Included will be a Snowdome for indoor ski-ing, a multi-screen cinema and a health club developed by Whitbread.

Freeport Leisure reckons that by the time the project is completed in about September 1999, almost five million people will live within 60 minutes of the site, close to junction 32 of the M62, and nearly 11 million will live within 90 minutes driving time. Entertainments of the kind found at the Hornsea Freeport will be available, making a visit a family day out. About five million people are expected to travel there from York every year.

That would clash with the catchment area of the £60 million "designer outlet village" being built by developers BAA McArthur Glen on the site of the former Naburn Hospital, York, due to open in October.

Both would particularly vie for potential clients from York and West Yorkshire.

Ben Bellak, spokesman for Freeport Leisure, said he recognised that there was an overlap which meant rivalry for the same group of customers as at the Naburn development. "There is room for both of us and we are not afraid of competition. When it comes to designer outlet shopping, though, we are very much the leader in the UK market in terms of square footage of retail space.

"We are family orientated and through our entertainment facilities we make shopping fun, occupying people who don't want to shop as well as those who do."

But clearly, BAA McArthur Glen believes that when it opens the first 80 shops at the Naburn Hospital site in October, its policy of funnelling its visitors into entertainments in York city centre will prove one up on any opposition.

Its spokesman said: "Part of the whole concept of McArthur Glen is to integrate with and bolster the local economy, and in York the designer outlet village will be a major attraction which will enhance the well-established tourist industry in York."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.