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London Entertainment Resort: All Discussion

As much as I'd love this to happen and think it'd bring a lot to the country, it obviously is never going to happen in a country that's allergic to anything being build on any bit of land outside an existing city centre, and London Resort don't even seem to have tried to find another piece of land after years of objections?

We really do need a major theme park that's accessible from London, though — 6% of France's tourism income is through Disneyland Paris apparently, which this obviously wouldn't hit now but in its original pipedream state as a place to go for British IPs that would have been huge.
 
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benpicko said:
As much as I'd love this to happen and think it'd bring a lot to the country, it obviously is never going to happen in a country that's allergic to anything being build on any bit of land outside an existing city centre, and London Resort don't even seem to have tried to find another piece of land after years of objections?

We really do need a major theme park that's accessible from London, though — 6% of France's tourism income is through Disneyland Paris apparently, which this obviously wouldn't hit now but in its original pipedream state as a place to go for British IPs that would have been huge.
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Easier for you guys to say, I'd kill for any sized theme park in Scotland that didn't involve travelling fair crap and half decent theming jobs. Honestly between the London resort and a legit theme park in Scotland to have a chance would be a close run thing in terms of them ever happening by this point.
 
Poisson said:
Major theme park accessible from London? Have Thorpe, Chessie and Lego disappeared?
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Who's travelling from another country to any of those specifically for the park in the same way people travel for Disneyland Paris? Maybe I'm completely wrong and there are massive amounts of people doing that, but surely a much bigger park with all the British IP that the original plans for this were supposed to have would draw in more people than any of those?

And I completely understand that I'm dredging up the original plans here to make the point, but I didn't follow this at all when this originally being discussed and it's a bit frustrating that it was met with such opposition even when there were major backers.
 
Poisson said:
Met with major opposition for many, many reasons. There's a lot of available land in this country and they persisted with some unsuitable land in the wrong place.
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And I completely agree they should've found alternatives -- that's what I meant by 'and London Resort don't even seem to have tried to find another piece of land after years of objections?'

But out of interest, where would a good bit of land be?
 
benpicko said:
And I completely agree they should've found alternatives -- that's what I meant by 'and London Resort don't even seem to have tried to find another piece of land after years of objections?'

But out of interest, where would a good bit of land be?
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Bias here but...Scotland, there's a lovely open space at M&D's that needs a nuke dropped on it and needs to start again! :p
 
There's already one park in the UK that with the right investment could stand up against any of its European counterparts. It's Alton Towers. Plenty of land, perfect setting, already proven to bring in millions of people (even despite not connecting directly to a motorway). Factor in other well known attractions in the midlands and I'd say a new park there is redundant.

The London parks are admittedly small. But so is Phantasialand, and from an enthusiasts perspective that can stand toe to toe with Disneyland Paris. Speaking of which Disneyland Paris is also incredibly easy to get to (not cheap, but then neither is the park). So I'd say London is well catered for.

I have to agree with QTXAdsy. If any part of the UK could actually really benefit from a new park it would be Scotland. I don't know if they could support more than a medium sized park. However it would more than make up for it if it leant into being uniquely Scottish compared to the other UK parks.
 
Tim said:
There's already one park in the UK that with the right investment could stand up against any of its European counterparts. It's Alton Towers. Plenty of land, perfect setting, already proven to bring in millions of people (even despite not connecting directly to a motorway). Factor in other well known attractions in the midlands and I'd say a new park there is redundant.

The London parks are admittedly small. But so is Phantasialand, and from an enthusiasts perspective that can stand toe to toe with Disneyland Paris. Speaking of which Disneyland Paris is also incredibly easy to get to (not cheap, but then neither is the park). So I'd say London is well catered for.

I have to agree with QTXAdsy. If any part of the UK could actually really benefit from a new park it would be Scotland. I don't know if they could support more than a medium sized park. However it would more than make up for it if it leant into being uniquely Scottish compared to the other UK parks.
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Disney is incredibly easy to get to from London, but that's kind of my point: it's easier to get to Disney as a tourist visiting London than it is to get to Alton Towers, and none of the parks close to London are impressive enough to sway tourists to do otherwise.
 
We've touched on this a fair few times in this topic, but it's all too easy to say that London needs a "destination" theme park, and it's easy to make that argument if you think solely about what a finished theme park with an established flow of guests coming in. But, there's so many spanners to chuck in the works:
  • The extensive planning processes and cost of land near cities
  • The huge amount of investment needed to bring infrastructure up to scratch for a park that size. We're talking scary numbers, especially when you consider higher construction costs and all that lovely planning bureaucracy
  • Securing any sort of funding with the current economic outlook. You only have to look at attendances this year at parks around the world to see that's an issue
  • Actually managing to staff the thing at the moment too
As DLP has been mentioned, don't forget that was a resort on its absolute backside for years despite what are pretty much the strongest IPs in the world and a company with substantial financial might and theme park experience.

I just don't see a flagship "from scratch" theme park being built in Europe anytime soon - it's just far too expensive and risky. Even the Universal stuff now seems to be back to them buying Port Aventura rather than building something brand new, but even that's gone quiet as of late.
 
QTXAdsy said:
Bias here but...Scotland, there's a lovely open space at M&D's that needs a nuke dropped on it and needs to start again! :p
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Sorry to bust your bubble but there’s never, ever, ever going to be a decent theme park on the site of M&D’s no matter how many times you wish for it to happen unfortunately. Nobody is going to bring a major project there.

The London Resort was a good idea but the wrong site, and if any similar project was to happen it would likely be built either in the south but within reach of London, or in the Midlands perhaps. The plans for a Puy du Fou park near Oxford show where the locations for a park could be and it’s nowhere near the north of the border unfortunately.
 
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The whole of Scotland has a population of around five million, and Scotland is big geographically...more than half the size of England.
The chances of any large park succeeding in Scotland...pretty poor.
A small Wild Haggis zoo with a couple of family coasters tagged on is far more likely.
 
If Ireland can support Tayto Park/Emerald Park then I think Scotland could easily support a proper theme park near Glasgow.
 
havaska said:
If Ireland can support Tayto Park/Emerald Park then I think Scotland could easily support a proper theme park near Glasgow.
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It would probably just draw people away from Blackpool though. Its not impossible but you'd need to invest a lot to get it to a standard where people would choose it instead of travelling down south to BPB or even AT.

Tayto park started off as a crisp factory tour with a small zoo then slowly added rides, so the initial visitor base was already there. Most theme parks have evolved in the same way, AT was a country house, Chessington and Drayton Manor were zoos, Legoland was from scratch but took over the old safari park site. Thorpe Park is probably the biggest park created from scratch in the last 40 years, but what Tussauds turned it into in the 2000s is very different to the water themed place it was in the 80s/90s.
 
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For those doubting if a Scottish theme park could work, you're all thinking if we got London Resort up there which yes, that would never happen though definitely it could easily support a medium sized park if you used the M&D's site as you are all forgotten that for all the faults that cesspit has, it at least has the advantage of being sandwiched between Glasgow and Edinburgh and is in easy access for much of the central belt which is where all the people live.

And for those say that attendance levels at that place are poor and show why it won't work...it is M&D's remember, much of the GP know it's crap but if you were to plant Paulton's or even Flamingoland on that spot you'd see a difference in which people would be willing to take a chance and there is a vacuum there that anyone has no competition for miles and would have nothing to lose.

I do remember when the owners of Flamingoland if you remember were trying to create a resort/theme park near Loch Lomond which caused much anger much like the London Resort in which funnily enough the majority of the Scottish public in one certain rag newspaper asked why don't they just buy out M&D's and start from there which honestly isn't a bad idea.

Actually, would have been funny with hindsight when M&D's were administration that Flamingoland ended up buying the company and taking ownership thus giving them a Scottish foothold that they wanted, even of this administration was just a cover for the Taylors to start again though it would had one of the funniest backfires in UK theme park history had Flamingoland's owners taking over the site and saw the Taylors gone...would have been better than any London Resort coming north any day of week and for all the jokes about Flamingoland, they'd actually look good if they did this.

So yes, Scotland can support a medium sized park though certainly no London Resort which I accept, just needs someone to take a chance and prove doubters wrong. Saves me travelling down south constantly if that were the case...
 
I am surprised that Scotland doesn’t have a larger theme park. According to this link, Glasgow is the 3rd most populous city in the UK and Edinburgh is the 9th most populous city in the UK, and between them, they have a cumulative population of over 1 million: https://www.thegeographist.com/uk-cities-population-100/

If places like Oakwood manage to survive in such rural locations, then I do find it surprising that Scotland has been unable to house a larger theme park than M&D’s. As I said, Glasgow and Edinburgh are both pretty populous, and if a park were to be located near these two population centres, it would be within driveable distance of a not insignificant portion of the North of England; for instance, M&D’s is located only a 2.5 hour drive from a rather large population in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. And I’m sure that places like Cumbria are within a 3 hour drive, as well.

I’m not necessarily saying that a London Resort-scale park in Scotland would be a good idea or something that would be successful, as I think that Scotland is realistically too far from the bulk of the UK population for something like that to work up there. But is there the market for a mid-size regional theme park in Scotland? I definitely think there could be!
 
Obviously Scotland used to have Loudoun castle, can you remind me why that failed? I never went but I believe that was more a theme park then M&Ds
 
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