AS archetypal Yuletide outings go this one pretty much had the lot. It was, to quote some finely honed advertisements that positively twinkled with fairy lights, and which appeared in this and other newspapers during the run-up to Christmas 2008, a “winter wonderland” where “dreams really do come true.”

With its “Hollywood special effects” and “magical tunnel of light” it would be an irresistible seasonal treat for any Crimble-crazed youngster – second only to hopping onto a plane to Lapland itself. There would be a “fantastic fun ice rink,” a bustling Christmas market, beautiful snow-covered log cabins, sledge-pulling huskies, “real reindeer” and a picturesque nativity scene.

Elves would flitter gaily around and do whatever elves do. There would be a hearty welcome at Santa’s Grotto where no child would emerge without rosy cheeks, a cheery grin and a gift in hand.

The creators of this fabulous festive theme park – a couple of hours from Swindon in the New Forest near Salisbury – chucked in a couple of polar bears, just for the hell of it.

“Light up those who you love most” invited their glossy ad – with its image of a rotund, generously bushelled Father Christmas – and come along to “Santa’s amazing new snow-covered Lapland Village.”

Adding a further layer of icing, their website gushed: “We can assure you of an absolutely magical scene...just look at how real and cold the snow appe ars to be.

“Attention to detail of our theme park,” it concluded, “will truly wow you.”

If your preparations for the Big Day have gone sadly awry this year: perhaps none of the stuff you ordered over the internet has yet turned up, or maybe you couldn’t be bothered – sorry, haven’t had time – to write all of those cards, then it is surely nothing compared to the disappointment suffered by many local families seven years ago after splashing the readies on tickets for what soon became known as... ‘Crapland.’ If you thought Bansky’s Dismaland, which lured 150,000 paying customers to a derelict lido in Weston-super-Mare this summer, was a new concept then think again.

The only difference was that Dismaland was purposely designed to be dour.

Lapland New Forest was the result of crass incompetence, bad planning, appalling management and – in the words of a Crown Court judge - “unrelenting greed.”

I’d wager that Banksy was at least partially inspired to create the apparently magnificent Dismaland by the unmitigated disaster of Crapland. Eagerly anticipating the above mentioned treats, those who ventured to Lapland New Forest were instead greeted with a Christmas Calamity – a dreary Winter Blunderland where muddy fields resembling the setting for a remake of All Quiet On the Western Front were dotted with “log cabins” which looked uncannily like bog standard garden sheds.

The “wonderful ice rink” didn’t work and the “magical tunnel of light” appeared to be a domestic set of fairy lights dangling from some trees.

The Christmas market was a soulless tent with a few shabby tables while the promise of “delicious hot and cold seasonal food” turned out to be a couple of routine food stalls selling German sausages and turkey baguettes.

Chained to their kennels behind a fence, were some bored and very likely bemused huskies (“what the hell are we doing here?”) A couple of reindeer appeared equally baffled and under-employed.

At least the giant plastic polar bears, positioned amongst some half-heartedly snow-sprayed shrubs, seemed content enough. (Wonder where they got them from?) One woman complained that her son was horrified to see Santa – the very personification of Christmas – leaning against the porta-loo smoking a fag.

Another dismayed day-tripper said that her heartbroken granddaughter commented that “he doesn’t look like Santa at all – he’s too scrawny and grumpy.”

Increasingly feeling ripped-off, some parents began to brawl in an unseemly manner with the elves. One elf was punched in the face while others were said to have been roughed-up.

Queues to see Santa were up to two hours long, further provoking the wrath of some already very seriously peeved grown-ups.

The jovial icon also had his nose boxed by an irate parent whose seasonal spirit had finally evaporated. The Sun splashed with relish on the unseasonal charade with the banner headline: “Santa and three elves beaten-up... parents’ rage at grotto rip-off.”

The venture’s proposed 26-day run ignominiously closed after just six days while the company behind the un-festive fiasco swiftly went out of business.

There was no shortage of Lapland New Forest veterans, who paid either £30 or £25 per ticket, willing to talk to the media about the farcical festivities which they described, with varying degrees of anger and disbelief as a “scam”, a “joke”, “disorganised chaos” and “hell”.

Some 5,000 disgruntled customers complained to trading standards while three Facebook sites – one called Crapland – attracted more 1,000 supporters keen to get their money back (which, it is understood, they didn’t) and to see the perpetrators of the glorified “car boot sale” brought to justice.

  •  FROM day one fury raged over the paucity of festive fun at this sad apology of a Christmas theme park.
    But organisers Victor and Henry Mears, of Brighton, were adamant that they “haven’t ripped anyone off.”
    Henry blamed “a few groups of professional troublemakers” for many of the problems shortly after the opening.
    “Like all people they like to get into queues and just generate a bit of aggravation.
    “What is not here that we haven’t advertised?” he argued.
    Swooping onto the site, the media had a field day, providing Victor with an excuse for the venture’s abject failure.
    “Unscrupulous and inaccurate negative bias media broadcasts of both local and national press and television companies contributed significantly to fuelling widespread public concern, frenzy and distraction,” he railed.
    In other words, the public stopped going because the newspapers and television said it was garbage. But who told them it was rubbish in the first place? The paying customers, of course.
    Trading standards brought the brothers to court and in 2011 they were found guilty after a two-month trial in Bristol on eight counts of misleading the public. 
    Judge Mark Horton told the pair, who were both in their 60s: “The failure of Lapland New Forest was caused by the unrelenting greed shown by you and your desire to squeeze every drop of profit rather than build and create the winter wonderland you promised thousands of consumers.”
    They were jailed for 13 months. 
    But eight months later, after they had done their time, the conviction was quashed after it was deemed unsafe because one of the jurors had been spotted texting his fiancé during the trial.
    Their names – no doubt to the annoyance of who those who felt they had been duped – were cleared. 
    “I am livid,” Sharon Harper, 41, of Coleview, Swindon told the Adver. She had taken her two children to Crapland and with nieces and nephews.
    “I cannot see how a women texting her fiancé can void what these men did,” she complained.
    However it could be argued that Christmas came early for the Mears brothers that year.
  •  IT was 32 year-old Emma Craven’s misfortune to have taken a job as an elf at Lapland New Forest.
    “When I got there I was thinking ‘Oh my God, is this it,’” she told the Beeb.
    “It was a huge muddy field with a few sheds popped in it and a few little Christmassy looking things.”
    However, it soon got “quite nasty,” she said, as disbelief turned to rage among many who turned up and vented their frustrations on elves.
    “We were being called ‘frauds’ and ‘money grabbers,’” she said.
    On the third day one woman started screaming at Emma because her children had become cold, upset and began crying while queuing for more than two hours to see Santa.
    The mum screamed at her: “You’re rip off merchants, you’re taking the mickey - this is our money you’ve taken’.
    “She ran the buggy into my legs and he (her husband) grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shouted in my face - and with that slapped me.”
    Fellow elf Daryl Yarwood, 25, was also appalled at the set-up and of being a target for the public’s ire and disgust. 
    “I never want to see an elf costume ever again,” he vowed.