Mayor calls for London Harry Potter park

08.06.10 | Catherine Neilan in The Bookseller

London mayor Boris Johnson has urged Harry Potter fans to lobby author J K Rowling (pic left) for a theme park based on her creation to be built in the capital.

In his weekly Daily Telegraph column, Johnson questioned Orlando as the location for the new theme park The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, describing it as an example of Brits not having "the gumption to exploit our intellectual property".

The mayor said: "I deeply and bitterly resent that Orlando is about to become the official place of pilgrimage for every Harry Potter fan on earth... Because the fact is that Harry Potter is not American. He is British. Where is Diagon Alley, where they buy wands and stuff? It is in London, and if you want to get into the Ministry of Magic you disappear down a London telephone box. The train for Hogwarts goes from King's Cross, not Grand Central Station."
He added it would be "utterly mad, as a country, to leave it to the Americans to make money from a great British invention".

According to a Guardian report, a spokesman for Johnson's office at City Hall said the mayor first suggested a Harry Potter theme park in London to Warner Brothers 18 months ago but "the state of Florida beat us to it with an offer were unable to match".

The 20-acre theme park will open on 18th June.