The holiday village dream began many years ago

Following years of controversy of court battles, construction work is about to begin on Bluestone.

The �110m upmarket village of wood cabins - with water park and snow centre - promises to create 900 jobs.

William McNamara said there had been some "very dark days" during the legal challenges which held up the scheme.

But though frustrated about the delays, he said he never gave up on his "iconic destination" of west Wales.

The 500-acre development of upmarket holiday cabins, which plans to draw in hundreds of thousands of new visitors to Wales each year, was first mooted publicly four years ago.

Mr McNamara said he always had the idea for Bluestone but early in his career, more prosaic matters were at the fore - dairy farming

I intend to stay and enjoy the positive challenges that we can now expect William McNamara

His parents moved from London to start a new life farming in Pembrokeshire in 1949.

"I was destined, I believed, to a career in agriculture and I went to agriculture college and came home in 1980," he explained.

"But I realised within four or five years that I probably needed to look at something else because of the problems the industry was facing.

"So I came up with the idea to start a theme park instead."

That was to be Oakwood, Wales' only theme park, which has attracted millions of day-trippers to Pembrokeshire.

"I created Oakwood. It was my idea but it was a family business."

But even then the Bluestone dream was germinating, and in 2002 the businessman handed over the reins of Oakwood to his brother Paddy to pursue the dream of the holiday village nearby.

Bluestone is promoting itself as an upmarket destination

"Oakwood was a day visitor attraction and was very successful, but I wanted to do something else, to create a tourist attraction that would be totally new," he said.

However, he did not realise the opposition to Bluestone that would result in "unnecessary judicial challenges" from environment groups concerned about the development inside the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

The Lords finally gave clearance for the project last November.

Mr McNamara admitted that it had been "a very long, long journey at times ... with a lot of mountains to climb... and with some very low points".

He paid tribute to the Welsh Assembly Government, which had stood "shoulder to shoulder" with him, providing backing, and as importantly, offering counselling support.

At Monday's official launch, he repeated several times his "absolute commitment" to a project which he stressed would be eco-sensitive in the extreme and respond to the needs of his home county of Pembrokeshire.

Site work is already beginning and the water park is scheduled to open to day-trippers in 18 months.

But he said he accepted that although Bluestone would be be built in 18 months, it would take much longer to establish its reputation.

He said he would see his dream through.

"It's taken a long while to get where we are today and I intend to stay and enjoy the positive challenges that we can now expect."