An indoor snow centre in Belgium that has been closed to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic for the past four months is spending €30,000 a month on electricity to maintain its snow.

Snow Valley indoor snow centre has made almost all staff redundant and is eating into its financial reserves to keep going.  It has now been shuttered for four months since being told to close its doors on 25 October last year, leading to a power bill of more than €100,000 to date, but no income.

The problem, business manager Cor Mollin on Radio 2 Limburg, is not knowing how long the lockdown will continue for. Mr Mollin told the radio station, is that if they turned the power off, it takes nearly a month to initially thaw clear the slope of snow. Then it takes a minimum of four months more to build up a fresh snow surface, which covers one and a half hectares to a thickness of fifty centimetres from nothing, so initially they decided it was best to pay to maintain the snow.

“I am impatiently waiting for the day when we will have skiers on the floor again,” Mr Mollin told the radio station.