The great crested newts will be getting ready to move today to a new home on a wooded 50-acre site that stretches out from the shadow of an alpine gorge, where the snow will be under a huge roof and the mountains man-made in Suffolk. The journey towards creating one of the biggest winter sports facilities in the world has been long, winding and strewn with wildlife. Held up for seven years, Snoasis has finally got the go-ahead.

Work on the £350 million project will start in earnest this morning, with architects gathering to plan how to build Europe’s largest indoor ski slope and a set of facilities that could help to create a new generation of successful Winter Olympians.

It is one of the most ambitious schemes in British sport, a curious amalgam of Center Parcs and a centre for elite athletes. Apart from a huge ski slope, which will be more than 400 metres long with a vertical drop of 100 metres, there will be a dry-run bobsleigh track, skating rinks and an ice climbing wall.

For youngsters and keen skiers it will be a snowy paradise; for ambitious young athletes, it will be a purpose-built facility that could produce winners at a Winter Olympics, so often a frozen wasteland for Great Britain’s medal hopes. British performances at Winter Games range from the brilliant to the downright eccentric: Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean posted perfect marks in winning Olympic gold in ice dancing in 1984, but Britain is probably just as well remembered for the contribution of Michael Edwards, the plasterer from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, nicknamed “Eddie the Eagle”, as he soared to last place four years later in the ski-jump competition in Calgary, Canada.

But, then, it has always been a struggle. Coming from a nation with foul weather but a mild climate means that few British athletes see snow unless they are wealthy enough to travel abroad. The nation’s top skiers, such as Alain Baxter, are forced to train as far away as Chile for up to four months of the year. Four years from now a short train journey from London will take them to snow aplenty, albeit artificial.

Winter sports federations have been crying out for Snoasis, but opposition to developing the site of an old cement quarry and works outside the village of Great Blakenham, a few miles from Ipswich, was fierce, leading to a two-year government inquiry.

Original plans were to have Snoasis ready by 2011, but the serial planning delays mean that the site will not be finished until the end of 2012. Then, though, Britain’s Olympians bound for the 2014 Games in Canada could, for the first time, have their own, home-based training camp.

Godfrey Spanner, the managing director of Onslow Suffolk, the developer, said yesterday: “It is a huge shame we will not be ready for the 2012 Games, for it would have been a tremendous base for a visiting team. But we have the go-ahead and we will be pushing on. Snoasis will be one of only three indoor centres like this in the world and we are aiming to make some fabulous facilities that will help athletes involved in winter sports. It is not just a tourist attraction but a contribution to British sport, we hope.”

In stark contrast to a huge number of sports facing cutbacks as the credit crunch bites into budgets, Snoasis has funding in place and is ready to go. Apart from 3,500 workers needed for construction, a further 1,500 will be employed on site in jobs ranging from cleaners to fitness coaches.

First and foremost Snoasis will be a holiday destination, with more than a million visitors a year expected, staying in 350 log cabins and a four-star hotel. But there will also be an athletes’ village, with places for up to 200 elite sportsmen and women, who will be able to use the extensive facilities to train for summer as well as winter sports.

The remaining newts and the badgers are scheduled to be moved from the main site to new ponds and setts over the next few weeks. Once they are settled, the diggers will move in to start creating a winter wonderland.

Olympic medals have been few and far between

Gold medals for Britain athletes at the Winter Olympic Games, or any sort of victory in winter sports, are as rare as snow on Christmas Day, but there have been high points - and very low points . . .

- Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean not only won ice dancing gold in 1984 but created a legend, their routine to Ravel’s Bolero achieving a perfect score.

- Bobsleighing is one of Britain’s successes, with four Olympic medals, the best coming in 1964 when Anthony Nolan and Robin Dixon (now Lord Glentoran) took gold in the two-man bob.

- But skiing is not a success story. Alain Baxter won bronze in the slalom in 2002 but was disqualified for failing a drugs test. The medal had to be returned. He has since posed naked for a calendar to raise money to go to the 2010 Games in Canada.

- Britain’s most notorious Winter Olympian, though, was Michael Edwards. With his bottle-bottom spectacles, he earned the nickname “Eddie the Eagle”, even though he finished last in ski jumping in Calgary in 1988. But the crowd loved him and he became world famous.

- Just how hopeless Britain have been on snow and ice was summed up by a French television commentator at the World Cup downhill skiing event in Val Gardena, Italy, in 1981, when Konrad Bartelski surprised the world - and himself - by coming second. “Ce n’est pas possible. C’est un Anglais,” he shouted over the airwaves.

Explore More Sport

• Athletics

• Boxing

• Cycling

• Sailing

• US Sport