Project Ocean Development
Plans & Concepts
The park have submitted planning permission for a flat ride on the former Ripsaw site. While the documents don’t reveal what sort of ride they are planning to install, it does give information about the immediate surrounding, with the ride itself described as:
“An attraction that sits atop a concrete structure that has an approximate overall height of 18m. The structure will house plant and storage on either side of an access tunnel that will maintain guest access within the Forbidden Valley area. Theming features will be situated to either side of the structure with queue line wrapping to the South and South-East.”
If the plans are successful, a new building will be installed straddling the existing path between the Coffee Lounge and the former Ripsaw site, with two tall theming structures on either side. The plans indicate that the existing path will remain, but will be part of an underpass to Galactica, with the new ride installed on top of the new pedestal-style building.
Whilst this new addition will be a direct replacement for Ripsaw, the ride itself will only use a small portion of the original Ripsaw site, which will instead be largely used for the new ride’s queue line and one of the ride’s theming features. This means that the development is pulled away from the historic Deer Wall, which runs across the back of the site. The move reduces the risk of any disruption to the park’s heritage assets or the ancient woodland beyond.
A General Development Order that applies to this park of Forbidden Valley means the park is able to keep the ride type under wraps at present. The plans do, however, include an indication of the scale of the ride, using a large cube in perspective views to demonstrate the extent of the area the ride will take up in comparison to the neighbouring structure.
Despite being shown as a large box in several of the planning documents, we know that the ride itself will be an outdoor attraction, sitting atop the new building. But we may not know the actual type of ride until installation begins.
However, there are some clues to be found in the document, including the dimensions of the new ride, which will be 11.5m in length x 14.5m in width with a building height of 4.8m and an approximate overall height of 18m for the whole development. The site sections also contain some details of the rather complex inner structure of the building, which might suggest the sort of plant machinery that will be housed within.
For the past few seasons, the site in question has been home to Funk’n’Fly, one of the temporary Retro Squad rides, which left the park at the end of last season. The end of the Retro Squad leaves a large gap in the park’s ride line up after several significant ride removals over the past decade, including Ripsaw that stood on the proposed site until 2015.