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2025: General Discussion

GaryH said:
... Merlin can pass off complaints for poor hygiene in the toilets for example to someone else. It wasn’t us gov. ...
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Sorry, but no they can't.
They are responsible for maintaining healthy and safe standards in the toilets within the facility, as far as the HSE are concerned, nobody else.
Filthy toilets are an actual crime under the workplace acts.
Some parks just get away with it.
 
I feel most sorry for the dedicated gardening team who look after the gardens here with so much knowledge and dedication could we see the gardens go further to ruin with this ??
 
You would hope that the gardens team would be kept separate from the new 'landscaping' role/department. Wouldn't surprise me at all if it replaces the gardening team though. Part of the problem with maintaining the actual gardens nowadays compared with the past is that ever since the hotels were built they have to look after all that part of the estate too. It was easier to maintain the gardens in the 70s/80s etc as they had more staff and they only really had to concentrate most of their efforts on the historic gardens and amusement park areas. Now there is so much more.
 
OCS are advertising for a Lead Engineer to work at both Warwick Castle and the National Sea-Life Centre in Birmingham.

The post has been up for about a week now:
jobs.ocs.com

Lead Engineer in Warwick | OCS Group

View details and apply for this Lead Engineer vacancy in Warwick. OCS UK & Ireland is a leading facilities management company with 50,000+ colleagues and a turnover in excess of £2bn. We deliver innovative, award-winning services within facilities management, hard ...
jobs.ocs.com jobs.ocs.com

I am rather surprised that facilities management for the midways weren't already outsourced to a third party.

OCS already has a working relationship with Merlin, so they are not an unknown entity. They currently provide security services to the London midways, and that contract has since been extended a few times.
www.infologue.com

OCS conjures up security success at Merlin Group - Infologue.com - Manned Security e-Zine

International total facilities services provider has been awarded a five year contract extension to provide security services to Merlin Group’s world-famous visitor attractions the London Eye, Madame Tussaud's and the London Dungeon. The comprehensive security services include access control...
www.infologue.com www.infologue.com
 
Out of curiosity, what does TUPE stand for?

If it’s some sort of transition between employers, I thought it was law that any employer had to interview people for a vacancy before just giving it to someone?
 
Matt N said:
Out of curiosity, what does TUPE stand for?

If it’s some sort of transition between employers, I thought it was law that any employer had to interview people for a vacancy before just giving it to someone?
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letmegooglethat.com

What Does Tupe Stand For?

For those who think it's easier to annoy you than to Google 'What does tupe stand for?' themselves.
letmegooglethat.com letmegooglethat.com

Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations (TUPE).

Business transfers, takeovers and TUPE: Overview - GOV.UK https://share.google/PadcJU4fyobKFiJ8c
 
rob666 said:
Sorry, but no they can't.
They are responsible for maintaining healthy and safe standards in the toilets within the facility, as far as the HSE are concerned, nobody else.
Filthy toilets are an actual crime under the workplace acts.
Some parks just get away with it.
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People can report these things to local authorities and government regulators, just that people don’t know their rights and see the internal feedback forms, where the attraction can just quietly discard the complaint if they wanted.

Pontins was a great example of this, everyone knew the reputation and their lack of cleanliness, including the local councils, but since people very rarely complained to the local council they couldn’t provide the data to tell Pontins to get their ‘stuff’ together.
 
Hid said:
How good are OCS do we know if there tried and tested like RWS Global are or will be a failure like Aramark are
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This is a bizarre statement. In what way are RWS tried and tested that Aramark aren't? Both being large players in their respective fields, with great work in their portfolios.
 
Islander said:
This is a bizarre statement. In what way are RWS tried and tested that Aramark aren't? Both being large players in their respective fields, with great work in their portfolios.
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RWS has worked with Disney, Europa and Hershey before so we knew what they could do
 
Hid said:
RWS has worked with Disney, Europa and Hershey before so we knew what they could do
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Aramark has worked with WB Studios, so we knew what they could do

Also, be careful not to be hoodwinked by marketing bumph. Has anyone here actually seen the small kids club show RWS did at Europa (because they didn’t produce what most would call the “main” shows)?
 
Interestingly when I first started working at Thorpe (Tidal Wave was the new ride that year) the toilet staff were outsourced to a FM company. They were brought back in the next year I believe.
 
As with Aramark, we can talk about how “good” a company is based on their previous work, but the whole point of outsourcing is that it’s tailored to a client’s needs, and usually - budget. Throw a massive shedload of cash at an outsourcer, and they’ll bend over backwards to dish out a fantastic product and service as there’s very little to constrain them. Outsourcing companies are capable of rolling out a service that is comparable or exceeds the previous in-house offering providing the budget and contractual specifications suit.

However, we have to be honest that that’s an exception rather than the norm. There’s no getting away from the fact that the vast majority of companies outsource solely to reduce costs. We’ve seen with previous outsourcing at Merlin that the quality has generally gone downhill and for things like Aramark the pricing has gone sky high. RWS are still relatively new to the scene in comparison to Aramark, the financial squeeze on the contract’s value perhaps hasn’t happened yet. Therefore with OCS, I unfortunately see it as entirely reasonable to believe that we’ll see similar issues with this deal in future.
 
The new leader for Towers do we know who it is and have they made themselves public, because haven't seen much from the new leader like Bianca did not sure if that is a bad or good thing
 
Hid said:
The new leader for Towers do we know who it is and have they made themselves public, because haven't seen much from the new leader like Bianca did not sure if that is a bad or good thing
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Post above states who it is….

But I wanted to add that Bianca took a step back from being overly public facing during 2025.

She deleted her instagram and didn’t do as many public facing things as the previous years.

Maybe that was her decision or maybe Merlin decided they did not like it and this was part of her wanting to leave. We will never know.

It’s not their job to be public facing so don’t expect either the interim or the replacement to do the same.
 
As far as I am aware, Neil’s appointment was very rushed and last minute. The intention was for him to leave the business, and within 24 hours he was offered interim VP.

He is someone that knows the park inside out, and am confident in what his leadership might hold. Like Bianca, he needs the support of Merlin to succeed though.
 
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