There are a multiude of ideas that ZSL could do with this building. The last estimate for a comlplete refurb came to a cost of £5m
A damn shame something cant be done with it, considering it's the first thing you see when you walk through the main entrance. It really is a White Elephant in every sense of the word.
My solution: use it as a South American house. Use the interior for Brazilian Tapir and Capybara - restore the water in the moat, and have steps leading from the dens. The primate houses could be used for any South American species that you can think of (and London's Spider Monkeys immediately spring to mind).
I like Ring-tailed Lemurs, but they don't have to be done there. And the great attraction of this idea to me, apart from the fact that the house could once again be used to house species that could use the paddock, is that it would return to Whipsnade two species held when Gerald Durrell worked there, and for which he had a very obvious affection, judging by "Three Singles to Adventure", "The Whispering Land" and "Menagerie Manor".
