Small is beautiful at UK's new theme park

THE PRINCE OF WALES would doubtless approve of the new village rising from the fields near his mother's home at Windsor, writes Glenda Cooper. Its cottages, built in traditional styles with red pitched roofs and roses round the doors, cluster around a green by an ancient church. Only the materials are not traditional: everything is made of Lego.

Construction of the world's second Legoland, in which 55 million toy plastic bricks will be used to create scale models of British and European scenes including Tower Bridge and St Paul's cathedral, began yesterday.

The theme park, on 40 acres of the site of the failed Windsor Safari Park in Berkshire, hopes to attract up to 1.4 million visitors a year after it opens in 1996.

The pounds 75m project will create up to 600 mostly seasonal jobs in the area. No admission prices have yet been set but it is likely the system will be the same as at the original Legoland in Denmark, where customers pay an all-in fee that includes a variety of rides. A third Legoland is planned for Carlsbad, California.

Windsor Safari Park closed in 1992 after its owners, Themes International, went into liquidation. The 600 animals, which included 40 big cats, a killer whale and elephants, were rehoused in zoos across Europe and America.

(Photograph omitted)