THE residents of Weybank Close have had their Christmas dreams shattered after they booked what they thought would be great day out to Lapland New Forest only to find the park being branded "a joke" by visitors as it opened last week.

More than 50 residents had signed up for the trip on December 16, including families with young children and some elderly residents of the Close.

"Each year we go somewhere nice, like a pantomime or something but this year we thought we'd do something different," explained Sandra Taylor, one member of the residents' committee who helped decide the destination of this year's outing.

They chose Lapland New Forest, at Matchams Leisure Park on the Hampshire-Dorset border, which opened last Friday after seeing it advertised in the newspaper. The park promised life-like snow, log cabins, husky dogs, a bustling Christmas market and nativity scene.

However, in reality hundreds of visitors to the park- which costs £25 per ticket- have criticised the attraction and reported an experience quite different to what they had been expecting.

Issues included a broken ice rink, claims a child witnessed Santa smoking and the nativity scene nothing more than a painting on a billboard set in the distance across a muddy field.

Mrs Taylor explained that the housing association, Weybank Housing Co-operative Limited part of CDS co-operatives, pay for the residents to go on a trip every year at around Christmas time and had shelled out £1,100 for the trip. The cheque was sent to the park last month but the residents are now trying to see whether they will be able to get their money back and choose an alternative trip.

Mrs Taylor said many of the residents had "built their hopes up" for the trip but that even if they were not able to get a refund they would not be going after seeing all the negative reports in the news.

"How can you take kids to this?" she asked. "It's a scam and we've been ripped off."

For the time being all the residents of Weybank Close can do is wait. They have received no tickets for the trip and the committee, which is working on arranging an alternative, has had no joy in contacting Lapland New Forest about a refund.