8) Transport - access road (maybe with a new labour government) or reopening the railway back to Oakamoor with a park and ride from the new leek station could help with both access and multi day tickets etc. keeps all the money local, provides something different and takes cars off the road.
Access road, ofc. This has been talked about many times over the years but I remember some years ago the last this was asked Merlin were like 'nope, never going to happen move on' at that time, not sure if their views have changed.
The railway I'd say is good however using the old Alton station would not be suitable for the park as it is in the wrong direction from the entrance and even if it wasn't trying to make car parking space is a non-starter though I'd love to see the Churnet Valley Railway get there. If you wanted a rail link right towards the park, you'd want to go in the other direction on a the original spur line via Uttoxeter to Ashbourne in which you come in from the back and if you had permission to build a new alignment into the carpark on the site of the Extraordinary Golf which could be your new island style platform then you'd be in a walking distance from the Monorail which would give that the excuse to overhaul it and make work as an actual piece of integrated transport system for the park. I did sketch up these drawings on how you'd do an Alton Towers rail link.
So let me put on my rail consultant hat on here...
To give an idea what is what, the red line is the new route, blue is the old alignment and the yellow is the current line.
To have any chance, you'd have to include Ashbourne as part of the rail link (ignore the missing red line at the bottom as I left that out by mistake!) to make it seem like a worthwhile project
This being a new alignment which would cause problems for going through the wood which cutting down trees even if there is a promise to replant more will cause an uproar but at the very least the area around Alton village would remain unaffected as you can see with the terminus there, it makes a modern rail link far more suitable to serve the park rather than the old station which while looking nice is not suitable for the task in mind.
Reason why I'm not using the old track bed is that either much of is has been redevelopment and will cost more to try and buy back land, also much of it is not suitable for modern standards though I will confess I haven't got the best knowledge of the railway system of the area and finally you might as well spend a bit to make it the best possible rail system as possible in which yes it would not be suitable for the park's current operating form but if they were to have a bigger attendance through more days of the year operating wise then the railway would help pay its way back and would improve the park's transport links dramatically and that is not including the bypass route.
Still, I'm just trying to help give out ideas of how it could be done. I just love playing trains and just trying to combine my two loves of theme parks and trains into one...but yeah, I might have gone off topic here but as I said before, the park will need proper transport links if they are serious of more openings throughout the year.