Chessington World of Adventures Resort

[Sam]

‘2,000 safety defects’ identified at Chessington
25 September 2014 Editor NewsNo comments

A surveyor that identified ‘2,000 safety defects’ at Chessington World of Adventures failed in a bid to prevent the park opening in 2013, it has emerged.

Dr Peter Cave and his consultancy company Peer Egerton were commissioned by park operators Merlin Entertainments to assess the park following an accident in 2012.

His report concluded that there were some “2,000 safety issues”, according to the BBC’s reporting of a court hearing this week.

A four-year-old girl fell through queue line fencing for the Tomb Blaster dark ride and suffered serious injuries and subsequent coma.

The incident caused considerable negative PR for Chessington, and Merlin commissioned Dr Cave and his company to identify further potential safety issues around the Surrey theme park.

‘Campaign of harassment’

A conflict between Dr Cave’s company and Merlin ensued following the report’s completion, which Merlin attributed to a “financial dispute”.

Dr Cave subsequently failed in an attempt at getting a court order to prevent the park opening for the 2013 season.

He then proceeded to send approximately 80,000 emails to Surrey residents alerting them to the condition of the park. A number of petitions accusing Merlin of neglect of its rides were also posted online.

The Daily Telegraph reported how Dr Cave wrote to Merlin chief executive Nick Varney asking how he slept at night.

It was reported that £4.6 million had been spent at Chessington on remedial work following Dr Cave’s original report, with some of it “urgent” in nature.

Merlin and Dr Cave were in court this week as the Chessintgon company was denied a court injunction preventing Dr Cave from continuing what is described as a “campaign of harassment”.

Merlin described his “baseless” criticisms as “highly alarming, distressing and disgraceful”.

The judge said the case had raised “an important issue about the lawfulness of campaigns which, if their content is correct, are in the public interest”.

“I accept that the issues Dr Cave raises are matters of public interest,” she said “1.6 million people visit the park every year.”

“Campaigners may, in the course of their activities, annoy, irritate and upset companies and individuals.

“To what extent should those activities be restrained by the civil courts, before the question whether they are justified has been decided?

“To what extent are they criminal offences?”

Dr Cave had made very effective use of the internet and emails to get his message across and Merlin could not use anti-harassment legislation to stop him, she concluded.

Well done to Dr Peter Cave for standing up to the bullies and speaking out according to his conscience! Excellent journalism from RideRater too.

 

[jon81uk]

The problem is many of these minor "safety" issues are where they have to tailor everything ready for the stupidest guest. This is why the 200 year old gardens at Alton Towers are getting full of fencing as no one is willing to take responsibility for their own safety and expect everyone to look after then smallest thing so they can't harm themselves

 

[Joel]

Excellent journalism from RideRater too.

You mean the BBC, right?

 

[_nemesis_]

A bit pathetic really. Trying to shut the place down... I can see his point, even though he took it way too far.

 

[Rob]

Merlin employ company to assess the park. Merlin then throw a hissy fit after the assessment finding that their park has many safety flaws. Well done Merlin!

Although I'm sure that many of the 2000 safety issues were probably pety things that are not really issues at all.

 

[Benzin]

A bit pathetic really. Trying to shut the place down... I can see his point, even though he took it way too far.

Was it not his job to find the defects as asked to by Merlin?

A car with numerous defects shouldn't be allowed to be driven on the road, would should a theme park with safety concerns (bubbled up by the Tomb Blaster incident) be allowed to open until it's confirmed that they have solved the issues...

The surveyor would be doing an extremely poor job if he didn't pursue his findings in such a way, especially as it would appear that Merlin didn't take well to his findings either...

Explains why Runaway was closed all year then don't it?

 

[DiogoJ42]

Frankly, with the state Chessington has been allowed to fall in to over the last decade, it amazes me the place hasn't spontaniously combus...

.... Never mind.

 

[_nemesis_]

Was it not his job to find the defects as asked to by Merlin?

A car with numerous defects shouldn't be allowed to be driven on the road, would should a theme park with safety concerns (bubbled up by the Tomb Blaster incident) be allowed to open until it's confirmed that they have solved the issues...

The surveyor would be doing an extremely poor job if he didn't pursue his findings in such a way, especially as it would appear that Merlin didn't take well to his findings either...

Explains why Runaway was closed all year then don't it?

My point wasn't that what he did at the time was wrong. But the fact that he is still doing it after Merlin have clearly spent large sums of money on sorting the issue, is what shouldn't be allowed. Over a year after the incident and he's carrying on his campaign.

 

[Rob]

My point wasn't that what he did at the time was wrong. But the fact that he is still doing it after Merlin have clearly spent large sums of money on sorting the issue, is what shouldn't be allowed. Over a year after the incident and he's carrying on his campaign.

Maybe he doesn't believe that all the issues have been sorted? We cannot know for sure. If it's petty over the top stuff he's now going on about then fair enough, he should probably stop. But it might not be.

 

[Benzin]

My point wasn't that what he did at the time was wrong. But the fact that he is still doing it after Merlin have clearly spent large sums of money on sorting the issue, is what shouldn't be allowed. Over a year after the incident and he's carrying on his campaign.

Perhaps he feels that what Merlin have done isn't an adequate response to the situation?

Perhaps it goes into the factor that Merlin didn't take kindly to the results of his findings?

Bear in mind as well that court proceedings can often take a long time to be settled like this, I would imagine his campaign mainly focused on the situation the park was in last year, which anyone can agree one was an absolute mess (and his issues of a lack of safety probably proven even this year with the fire)...

His issue has been that (after doing some reading up) that after his report was given Merlin took it away and claimed the work was done without it being checked over by someone... Self-Regulation in the engineering industry is a bit of a buzz-word at the moment, with a lot of focus on ensuring that there are regulations and standards in place to ensure that things are in tip-top condition... Merlin also wanting the report not available in the public domain also rings alarm bells...

Looking for any stuff of this guy's campaign, found this blog opinion piece on the case, which is pretty good in my opinion... http://alrich.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/merlin-entertainments-theme-park-safety-campaigner/


EDIT - Here's the petition link that was set up, which certainly isn't an attack on Chessie, but the ADIPS Chair being the Merlin director of H&S - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/58588

 

[electricBlll]

The park are extremely strict on safe day-to-day running of its rides, and are ramping up the H&S all the time. This doctor character was not the one responsible for the big survey they did at the start of 2013 (which saw the demolition of pieces of Runaway Train, Dragon Falls and other areas).

There's currently nothing unsafe about Chessington, other than the general risk of trying to entertain people.

 

[TheMan]

I really would love to see you safety report you conducted @electricBlll - maybe you would post your exhaustive professional survey here?

 

[electricBlll]

Oh I don't have a safety report, therefore I don't know what I am talking about and Chessington is actually extremely unsafe.

There ya go, sarky, grow up a bit

 

[TheMan]

Oh I don't have a safety report, therefore I don't know what I am talking about and Chessington is actually extremely unsafe.

There ya go, sarky, grow up a bit

Sorry, excuse me, you just signed a whole park of as safe in one sweeping statement and you tell me to grow up lol?

Put your credentials on the table Bill, tell us why it's now completely safe in it's entirety across park. I am not saying it isn't but that guy sure as heck doesn't seem convinced.

I don't know either way, and unless you're intimately involved in the H&S of the Merlin brand now from an independent company I cannot begin to understand how you could either.

 

[electricBlll]

No, can't be bothered with pointless arguing and it's obviously much more exciting for people to baselessly think that Chessington is going to explode at any minute (the only reason this made the news), so don't let me stop you.

If the question is about flaws in Merlin's internal H&S inspections, which is actually what this Dr Cave guy was trying to get at, then that's a different matter and I wouldn't know. (Or really care)

 

[TheMan]

No, feel free to keep seeing this news story about nothing as something much more important than it is.

If the question is about flaws in Merlin's internal H&S inspections, which is actually what this Dr Cave guy was trying to get at, then that's a different matter and I wouldn't know. (Or really care)

You avoid my question Bill, put your credentials on the table that back up your sweeping statement about the safety of the park. Again, I have not got anywhere near the kind of resources to even begin to make such a statement, indeed my personal belief was that Towers et al was quite safe but, judging by this statement:

This is the eye-catching bit but the defects observed in its theme parks are quite endemic and more money must be spent on the essential maintenance of older assets rather than just building new headline rides to draw the crowds.

It would appear a certain Mr Cave does to a degree negate your last point somewhat.

 

[_nemesis_]

See. This whole thing is stupid. Health & Safety in Britain as a whole.

It's gone past trying to stop people accidentally hurting themselves, and is now making it impossible for people to potentially hurt themselves.

Stupidity.

 

[Rob]

So Chessington are due in court on November 4th regarding the fall from the Tomb Blaster quueue line:

Chessington World of Adventures summonsed over Jessica Blake fall

Chessington World of Adventures has been ordered to appear before magistrates after a girl suffered a fractured skull in a fall.

The Health and Safety Executive has summonsed the Surrey theme park over an alleged health and safety breach.

Jessica Blake, then aged four, from Sheerness, Kent, fell 14ft (4.2m) while queuing for a ride in 2012.

Chessington World of Adventures Operations Ltd will appear before Redhill magistrates on 4 November.

The 14ft (4.2m) fall on 7 June left Jessica with broken ribs and a bleed on the brain.

'Unprecedented incident'

A spokeswoman for the theme park said: "The health and safety of our visitors is always the primary objective of Chessington World of Adventures.

"We take any incident on the park very seriously, particularly one as significant and unprecedented as the one in June 2012 in the Tomb Blaster queue."

She said Chessington carried its own detailed investigation at the time of the incident and also co-operated fully with the HSE investigation.

Chessington World of Adventures is run by Merlin Entertainments, but has its own senior management team which will respond in court, she said.

Source

I'd imagine that if found guilty they'll be recieving a hefty fine.

 

[Tom]

The line that Merlin takes over these things is counter-productive. "We are disappointed by the decision to prosecute"

They were disappointed by the decision to prosecute over the Warwick Castle death in 2007 and were disappointment with the judgement. It makes them look nasty, and it's obvious the same thing is going to happen again.

 

[Benzin]

People should note that it's the HSE taking them to court over this, rather than the family...