Following on from my previous post about Ride Access Passes, let’s look into the current state of UK parks, specifically all the recent closures and parks in trouble.

There has been a lot of beloved attractions and parks that have closed in the last few years and more are looking like they’re on the way. Lightwater Valley nearly went under until it was bought out by Mellors Group. Flambards shut up shop in 2024, Oakwood confirmed it’s closure last year, Pleasurewood Hills has come close in recent years, Drayton Manor has been into administration and now Brean Theme Park has entered liquidation. The awful question is, who’s next?!

That’s on top of losing such great rides like The Ultimate, The Hornet and Dreamland Margate’s Scenic Railway too.

I can only speak for myself as an enthusiast and not a business analyst or anything of the sort, and I mean absolutely no disrespect for any of the people who have lost their jobs working at these places, but maybe it’s for the good?

I’m not saying that it is a good thing, definitely not. I’d rather have hundreds of parks with hundreds of attractions to pick from but as a populace, we only have finite time and money to spend at theme parks.

Yes, it is horrible that Flambards closed and pretty much all their attractions went with its closure, and that Dreamland Margate has made the decision to not run Scenic Railway anymore, but what are the alternatives?

In an ideal world, if a park is struggling, like Oakwood, then a proper plan needs putting in place to see why it’s struggling and address those issues. Oakwood is a great park to choose for this so let’s use that as a basis.

Why did Oakwood fail?

I think there are 3 key issues that Oakwood faced during it’s operating years. Under investment is one, it’s location is another and safety is a third issue.

Safety is an easy one to look at, the park had 3 well publicised incidents from 2004 until 2024. There was a tragic accident on Hydro in 2004 in which a guest was launched from the attraction and died of their injuries because a safety bar wasn’t checked properly. This generated a fine of £250,000 as well as £80,000 court fees. Then there was the accident on Treetops in 2022 where another rider was ejected from the ride, and finally Bounce’s emergency stop that injured around 8 people. Thankfully no one was more seriously injured on both of these but the public will see this and not react well.

Then there’s the location. Oakwood is in the middle of nowhere, much like Alton Towers is now. Unlike Alton Towers though, Oakwood didn’t have any real public transport infrastructure to help guests reach it which leads nicely into investment.

It wouldn’t be so bad trying to get to a park like Alton Towers, even though it also has issues, it has some prestigious rides and reasons to visit. Oakwood, as much as I loved it, just didn’t. Megafobia was seen as the best wooden coaster in the UK by many and regularly took on international offering on many top attractions lists. Speed was a great Gerstlauer Euro Fighter, Drenched (the renamed Hydro) was a rare type of attraction (being an Intamin Shoot the Chutes Mega Splash ride) and Waterfall was just plain bonkers.

This all sounds great, but the parks newest roller coaster was Creepy Crawler, a second hand Pinfari model that didn’t review well, even though I enjoyed it! Their most recent addition was Dizzy Disc, a Dinis Disk’O attraction that opened in 2019! Megafobia was given an extensive and expensive overhaul in 2023 to the tune of £1.5 million which sounded excellent, but clearly the park had issues up to that point. Of all the rides that Oakwood had, Megafobia was the only one that anyone really talked about.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, we can look back and see a £1.5m retrack and then the park closing 2 years later as a waste of good resources, but I do not know if the park knew of it’s issues back then. It could have been in a good place and spending that amount of money on Megafobia was seen as a wise choice.

If they had known about money woes, maybe it would have been better for all involved for the park to close sooner and the rides be sold on or money spent on new attractions? I feel really awful saying this as it comes across as insensitive, and I really do not mean to be, but if the ship is sinking, save what you can while you have time surely?

I know that Aspro, who owned Oakwood at the time have since moved Speed to a new home as well as Bounce, Drenched and Treetops, but it would have been nice to have Megafobia moved somewhere too, especially before it’s retrack. Imagine if Thorpe Park or Flamingo Land had bought it with the express intention to rebuild it and save it! Then they could have given it a retrack and refurbishment and Oakwood could have bowed out gracefully, sending it’s assets onto new homes because they wanted to, not because they had to. As it currently stands, Megafobia will be left to rot away as it’s now not financially viable to move it as it stands.

Yes, Oakwood will still end up closing, but without any money to build new rides, I think it closing sooner might have been the better thing to have happened. I’ll miss Oakwood and I wish we could have saved it in its entirety.

We can look at other parks that had the wolves at the door too. Drayton Manor was in administration recently and thanks to Looping Groups investment and care, the park seems to be doing well now. The park has its issues too, much like Alton Towers, but people are now going, in higher numbers than in recent years, so hopefully their growth continues and another park is saved from the same fate as Oakwood.

Going back to Brean Theme Park, I’ve never been to it but looking at their Coasterpedia page, they put a lot of new attractions in last year and maybe they invested in the wrong market? I’m not sure on that.

I know one of my biggest bug bears in theme parks is when a park says they’re targeting families and what they mean is they’re buying cheap kids rides and nothing else. Lightwater Valley did the same thing, and I’m fairly certain when they said family, they meant under 10’s.

To make my point, I’ll use Alton Towers and Thorpe Park. Thorpe Park will never be able to bring in a full family unit as it’s rides are catered towards teens and adults. Walking Dead and Flying Fish are more gentle, but overall the park has thrill rides more than anything.

On the other hand, I would say that Alton Towers is a park that truly caters to families, much like Europa Park and Efteling. Yes, they have rides like The Smiler, Baron 1898, Voltron and Silver Star, but they have offerings from kids too, and some great family rides at that!

I don’t mean they have one or two rides that children can enjoy, but there are just as many, if not more rides that kids can enjoy, as there are top tier thrill machines. Carnival Festival or Droomvlucht at Efteling are great for the whole family, as is Gangsta Granny at Alton Towers, or Hex, or Curse. Then there’s the whole of Cbeebies land and Mutiny Bay. (Also I know I’ve mentioned Efteling in a discussion about UK theme parks…)

Going back to Drayton Manor and they seem to be leaning towards alienating the teen and adult market as their only big rides left are The Wave and Maelstrom, where The Wave has been made more accessible to a younger audience but nothing has been put in it’s place for those who want more thrills! For now I think it’s fine but they will want to grow with their clients and offer them more as they get older and taller.

And I think that is one of the biggest issues that parks have, not knowing who they want in their park and what they want to invest in!

I have no problem with parks being designed for kids, Gulliver’s parks are exactly that, but we have a laugh there, especially now they’re looking at getting a few more thrilling attractions, such as Winged Monkeys or Cyclosaur/Dragon Siege.

Maybe Brean and Flambards would have had brighter futures if they had something more for everyone. I really hope Mellors don’t make the same mistakes with Lightwater Valley and they decide to look at Paultons Park or Alton Towers for their ride line ups and make it into a successful place again!

To summarise as this has been a lot longer than I initially expected. I think the main issues we have with our parks here, are that we have an awful lot trying to do the same thing, not standing out from each other and not having a reason to visit over the next one. I think that Paultons Park have noticed this best and have decided that the family market includes everyone, not just kids, and are leading the way in well themed, varied attractions for everyone. If it hadn’t been for their introduction of Lost Kingdom and Tornado Springs, maybe Paultons would be staring down administrators, but instead they are flourishing.

Let’s hope that we don’t have any more sad news of parks closing, and if we do, that their attractions and staff can be moved onto parks near by to make them more attractive for guests in future?

This has been a long old blog! Thanks for getting this far and if you have, I’d love to know your thoughts on this. Which parks do you think could be next, and how can we help them to succeed?