The American Adventure is probably one of the most perfect locations for a theme park in the UK. Unfortunately, it's surrounded by the extremely conservative Amber Valley and small minded people who have conspired variably with the district and county councils to completely undermine it. To be clear - most of the surrounding housing was built to support the open cast mine, and much has been built since that mine closed. In the 1950s the NCB scaled up the mining with the promise that the land would be turned over to leisure and tourism use, including a private sector attraction - nobody complained.
Unfortunately for a good deal of its life the park didn't even need undermining. Britannia Park took far too long to get started because DCC totally mishandled the transfer, and then Britannia Park itself was a complete farce, and post-Broome the park was more or less left to die. Only under Park Hall/Granada ownership did the park succeed in partially fulfilling the site's potential, particularly in the first 6 years.
Adventure World should have been fantastic, in my view. An early planning failure didn't help - but unfortunately the main money behind the project, Trevor Hemmings, chose to massively scale back on investment in order to buy up whole chunks of Blackpool ahead of the expected supercasino. American Adventure had no investment. As visitor numbers and profit dropped, so did the maintenance budgets.
There are a number of what if scenarios - what if Granada had themselves been purchased in the mad 90s race for survival amongst ITV companies - would Park Hall Leisure be a force against Merlin now? Six Flags were said to be interested at one point, although I think this was before the Adventure World project had failed. Would AA have enjoyed investment under Six Flags/Walibi?
The last takeover attempt I'm aware of was from Grevin et Cie, but they were put off by the councils' unwillingness to allow the park to develop. I can understand their concern - the council had recently seeked to prevent Ventureworld from allowing its car park to be used as a Car Boot Sale out of season. The reason? Not that it would have been a rather tragic occurence - no, the reason given was traffic concerns. For a Car Boot. No I'm not making it up.
When Ventureworld finally threw the towel in there were numerous companies keen to take on the lease along with its infrastructure and continue to use it for leisure and tourism, among them Mellors, who wanted to create a park resembling something between Center Parcs and Lightwater Valley. Sadly the council were having none of it. The park's buildings were demolished at considerable public expense, then the grounds left to ruin.
The paltry amount DCC will receive in exchange for the land for 800 houses is such an insult to what should have been something fantastic for the entire region and country.
Unfortunately for a good deal of its life the park didn't even need undermining. Britannia Park took far too long to get started because DCC totally mishandled the transfer, and then Britannia Park itself was a complete farce, and post-Broome the park was more or less left to die. Only under Park Hall/Granada ownership did the park succeed in partially fulfilling the site's potential, particularly in the first 6 years.
Adventure World should have been fantastic, in my view. An early planning failure didn't help - but unfortunately the main money behind the project, Trevor Hemmings, chose to massively scale back on investment in order to buy up whole chunks of Blackpool ahead of the expected supercasino. American Adventure had no investment. As visitor numbers and profit dropped, so did the maintenance budgets.
There are a number of what if scenarios - what if Granada had themselves been purchased in the mad 90s race for survival amongst ITV companies - would Park Hall Leisure be a force against Merlin now? Six Flags were said to be interested at one point, although I think this was before the Adventure World project had failed. Would AA have enjoyed investment under Six Flags/Walibi?
The last takeover attempt I'm aware of was from Grevin et Cie, but they were put off by the councils' unwillingness to allow the park to develop. I can understand their concern - the council had recently seeked to prevent Ventureworld from allowing its car park to be used as a Car Boot Sale out of season. The reason? Not that it would have been a rather tragic occurence - no, the reason given was traffic concerns. For a Car Boot. No I'm not making it up.
When Ventureworld finally threw the towel in there were numerous companies keen to take on the lease along with its infrastructure and continue to use it for leisure and tourism, among them Mellors, who wanted to create a park resembling something between Center Parcs and Lightwater Valley. Sadly the council were having none of it. The park's buildings were demolished at considerable public expense, then the grounds left to ruin.
The paltry amount DCC will receive in exchange for the land for 800 houses is such an insult to what should have been something fantastic for the entire region and country.
