MENTION Tamworth anywhere in the country, or even on some foreign shores, and it's likely someone will mention the SnowDome.

The real snow ski slope was not only the first of its kind in the UK, but at the time it opened there were only two more like it in the world.

Since those early days catering for a relatively niche market, the SnowDome has gone from strength to strength to become the all-round leisure facility that it is today.

But the going has not always been as smooth as the 170-metre slope and its continued success can be attributed to three men who have invested a lot more than just time and effort into the business. After being built by Leamore Leisure in 1994 and sold to First Leisure PLC in 1996, the SnowDome was again up for grabs in 2000 when the PLC ceased to exist.

Martin Smith (49), Gary Baker (39) and Mike Coats (46) were among a group of five managers at the centre who risked their own homes to buy the company at a personal cost running into millions of pounds.

While two of the men were later bought out, Martin, Gary and Mike have spent the last 12 years building and expanding the business to make sure that huge risk paid off. And while the going has not always been easy, they haven't looked back since.

Married father-of-two, Martin Smith, headed up the management buy-out after having worked at the SnowDome since 1996.

He said: "It's not been easy, but I have never regretted it. We were the incumbent management on site and we became the new owners. We used bank money and our own funds, putting our homes up as collateral. If it hadn't worked out we would have lost everything, so we were taking a big risk.

"It wasn't an easy decision to make based on the level of personal risk and liability but having worked there we had a complete understanding of what we were getting involved in."

At that time the primary business was the ski slope, with the swimming pool and leisure centre then being run by Tamworth Borough Council.

While there are now six or seven real snow slopes in the UK and 60 to 70 worldwide, the technology needed to keep snow indoors was in its infancy when the SnowDome first opened.

Refrigeration problems meant the technology was on the very edge of what was believed to be viable.

And despite the growth of this sort of business in the years since, SnowDome Ltd still owns the intellectual property rights to its particular method of trading snow; which is said to be more cost effective.

"When it first opened it was so unique and so new there was a real surge in the number of people coming to experience real snow," Martin said.

"But even snowboarding didn't exist back then so the whole business relied solely on skiing. This meant it was busy in the winter as people were preparing for their skiing holidays, but quiet in the summer."

For this reason, Martin and his new co-owners needed to expand the offering to make it a place worth visiting all year round.

Their first challenge was to purchase a large unused part of the centre underneath the slope originally intended to be used as an ice rink, but which was owned by a private landlord.

They paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for what was essentially a box with a roof, walls and soil on the ground.

Martin and his colleagues set about fitting it out with a one third sized ice rink, a children's snow play area and later the Winter Wonderland. They also opened a third food room and in 2007 bought a Starbucks franchise.

In the same year, the publicly-run Peaks Leisure Centre was plunged into controversy when it was sold by the council to a private company.

Although the SnowDome had also bid for the leisure centre business, Martin, Gary and Mike lost out in a process of sealed bids.

But within a matter of months, the new business had failed, the leisure centre was closed and staff went unpaid. Fortunately the SnowDome team was able to save the day, finally acquiring the leasehold to the part of the centre known as Peaks. A massive £1million was invested to reopen the leisure facility as SnowDome Swim and Fitness.

The final piece of the commercial jigsaw came in January 2009 when the owners finally got the freehold to the site, to the effect that SnowDome Group Ltd now trades out of every square foot of the premises.

And despite being tested by the economic climate in recent years, the three local men have now by and large reached their goals for the centre.

"Our objective was always to attract people of all ages and all walks of life," Martin said. "And we have been successful in spreading our appeal and that has enabled us to prevail during these tougher economic times."

After buying in 2000, the directors enjoyed trading in a favourable economy all the way up until 2008, so they were unsure and a little anxious as to how the credit crunch would affect the business.

"The economy over the last three years has been a big challenge for us and we have had to reshape our cost base so we could continue to be viable," Martin explained.

"This has been a very satisfying accomplishment as it has not been easy.

"If we were still only reliant on the skiers and snowboarders it would have been a very grim picture indeed because that has been the hardest hit due to the decline in winter sports holidays.

"The reopening of the leisure centre has been a real success story in that it has helped balance the books so that if you take the entire building, it looks like we have not been affected. Some areas have shrunk and some have grown; which is to the great credit of very loyal colleagues."

So was the risk worth taking?

"We have largely got this place to where we want it to be," Martin said. "The SnowDome has had phenomenal reach and people still assume we are owned by a massive conglomeration.

"In fact, I believe that if the economy wasn't the way it was we would be operating other sites by now, but I guess that's a future dream."