DOZENS of people attended the launch of Monopoly's New Forest edition on Thursday.
Business owners gathered at the Balmer Lawn Hotel on Lyndhurst Road in Brockenhurst for the unveiling of the local edition of the popular board game.
Businesses and landmarks such as the National Park, Lymington Quay Side and Sandy Balls are all represented.
The Southern Daily Echo features on Fleet Street - the London road famous for once housing Britain's national newspapers.
The launch coincided with the exact time the game hit the shelves.
It featured a visit from Mr Monopoly who arrived in a Rolls Royce provided by the National Motor Museum, also featured in the game.
READ MORE: New Forest gets its own Monopoly edition
Speaking to the Echo, Ella Gibbs, customs games executive at Winning Moves UK, said: “We’ve been doing this for the past 20 years and every year we get a list together to look through to see what areas have lots of local pride, and lots of lovely landmarks and it drew us to the New Forest.
“We can see from everyone here today that it has ended up being a lovely launch, everyone in loves being from the New Forest and everyone has loved the launch.
“Everyone was really excited to get involved, and with the limited squares it was really important that we capture what makes the New Forest and we found that everyone wanted to be part of the edition.”
General Manager at Balmer Lawn Hotel, Michael Clitheroe, said: “There was so much anticipation for today so it was really nice to see who was on the board and so many independent and collective businesses in the New Forest were represented.
“And it was absolutely fantastic to be able to host it.
“[The invitation] came in about a year ago and like so many people, we did wonder whether it was legitimate.
“When we realised it was we organised the pitch an hour later and two hours later we were signed up to organise the launch.
“We wanted to take part in it, we wanted to showcase our lovely business and be part of something that is very memorable.”
Carol Seymore, from Go New Forest, added: “It’s just fantastic to have this game promote the high-quality businesses we have in the New Forest and by playing a game like this and making it fun people will take notice of the business featured in the game and hopefully go visit them.”
WH Smith, Waterstones and Amazon are among the retailers stocking the board.
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