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[202X] Project Horizon (SW9?): Planning Approved

Steve74 said:
Looking at this recent pic of the Project Ocean site, this company is working on that too (credit: @Zeock):

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That’s fair, it’s probably a company they probably work with a lot but I don’t see why a 12+ ton digger would be delivered that end of the park for PO.

The sky ride I also don’t buy, the darkest depths replacement being honest I don’t really know what that is.

It’s either PH or the darkest depths replacement.

Alton love glorified sheds and this company build sheds so honestly it could be anything. It was more where this equipment was delivered that peaked my interest when I heard about it.
 
BarryZola said:
The question is...where is this digger now? Come on people, you've had a whole weekend to find it. Feeling a bit disappointed by this flagrant lack of effort to be honest :disrelieved:
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There's one one possible solution.

world cup football GIF by Budweiser
 
flyingguitar said:
was saturday and saw an orange digger behind the gates to the left of the dark forest sign
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Hmmmm, so quite far away from the once potential Project Horizon site. An interesting development indeed. Surely they would have moved it into, or near to, coaster corner if it was for Horizon, I would have thought.
 
Craig said:
Again could we try and keep speculation sensible and on topic please? Seeing an orange digger does not mean it's for Horizon. Unless said machinery is seen working in the actual area of this project, then such discussion is off topic in here. Thanks :)
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But …. It could mean it’s for Horizon? Only jesting
 
Skyscraper said:
Unlikely, almost certainly been pushed back to at least 2026. Construction would have been a fair bit along otherwise. Makes sense to prioritise other more important things though tbh
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Where have we got this idea it was ever meant to open in 2025?

We come back to the planning permission being in a tricky area and I think all of us were surprised how quickly the council did approve it. It’s just as likely they have always planned for a 2026 opening but anticipated a longer battle for planning.
 
Dave said:
Where have we got this idea it was ever meant to open in 2025?

We come back to the planning permission being in a tricky area and I think all of us were surprised how quickly the council did approve it. It’s just as likely they have always planned for a 2026 opening but anticipated a longer battle for planning.
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The noise assessment from the planning documents said that the construction period was to start in Spring 2023 and would last 78 weeks, as pointed out by @Squiggs earlier in the thread:
Squiggs said:
The document you are looking for is the Noise Assessment Report, completed on 29th September 2022:

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Clearly at some point it was intended that construction was due to start last year. It's more a question of when that plan changed?

Given the application originally went before the planning committee in February 2023, it would seem sensible to assume that timelines started to change when it became apparent that the plans were going to go through an extended process.
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This would infer that at some point, construction was intended to start in 2023 and a 2025 opening was originally planned. When and why that changed, we don’t know, but based on what @Squiggs posted above, that seems to have been the original intent.

I do hope that Horizon isn’t delayed beyond 2026, though. I’m aware that there are other things people would like to see done, and I get that, but 2026 will already represent 8 years since the park’s last major new ride investment in Wicker Man. I’m aware that they’ve done other stuff in that timeframe, but a lot of what they’ve done is ultimately refurbishment of existing rides. I fear that if they go much longer without a major new ride investment, then visitor numbers might stagnate and people might start to view the existing ride lineup as stale, similar to what happened to Thorpe Park in the late 2010s or so.
 
Matt N said:
The noise assessment from the planning documents said that the construction period was to start in Spring 2023 and would last 78 weeks, as pointed out by @Squiggs earlier in the thread:

This would infer that at some point, construction was intended to start in 2023 and a 2025 opening was originally planned. When and why that changed, we don’t know, but based on what @Squiggs posted above, that seems to have been the original intent.

I do hope that Horizon isn’t delayed beyond 2026, though. I’m aware that there are other things people would like to see done, and I get that, but 2026 will already represent 8 years since the park’s last major new ride investment in Wicker Man. I’m aware that they’ve done other stuff in that timeframe, but a lot of what they’ve done is ultimately refurbishment of existing rides. I fear that if they go much longer without a major new ride investment, then visitor numbers might stagnate and people might start to view the existing ride lineup as stale, similar to what happened to Thorpe Park in the late 2010s or so.
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I think the key word in that is “it is understood”.

I’m genuinely not convinced they had a hard plan to open this in 2025. Maybe they wanted to keep their options open but that’s my opinion.
 
Dave said:
I think the key word in that is “it is understood”.

I’m genuinely not convinced they had a hard plan to open this in 2025. Maybe they wanted to keep their options open but that’s my opinion.
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Fair enough, but I do feel that to put this in the planning application, that was surely at least an aspirational plan at some stage. I’m not saying it was necessarily a concrete plan, but that wording to me would seem like it was at very least their hopeful plan for if everything went well.

If they never had a serious intent of starting construction last year and opening in 2025, then why would they ever have put that in there? I’m aware that some in this thread are a fan of the Occam’s razor analogy, which is where the easiest explanation that requires the least assumptions is the one that it’s most likely to be. In this case, the easiest explanation for them saying Spring 2023 construction start in that planning document is that it was originally intended to start construction in Spring 2023.
 
There really is no rush to build *another* coaster at Towers. Any non-enthusiast I’ve ever spoken to still views Wickerman as new, but has a lot to say about the long queues and not a lot to do apart from coasters.

If indeed Horizon is delayed they’ve made the right decision
 
Alphe86 said:
Copy/paste error? The documents for Ocean say starting in 2023 as well
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Maybe so, and I guess that wouldn’t be beyond them. But these planning documents cost a lot of money to make and need to be right to the best of the applicant’s knowledge; if they aren’t correct, the park could possibly risk legal action. With this in mind, I’d like to think that it’s unlikely.

Ultimately, we now know that the ride pretty much has no chance of opening in 2025. Whether it opens in 2026 or later, the reasons for the delay are something we will probably never know and will ultimately be irrelevant if or when the thing eventually opens.
 
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Delaying the project is the correct outcome regardless of the reasoning (which we’ll never find out)

Outside of CBeebies land, Towers currently has operating :

- 9 coasters
- 3 dark rides
- 2 water rides
- 1 family thrill flat ride
- 4 family flat rides
- 0 (!) thrill flat rides
- 0 permanent shows

Those ratios are awful and the park is a long way off needing a new coaster with such glaring holes in the current lineup
 
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