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More fences

Not sure if this has been noted elsewhere, apologies in advance if it has.

It appears even more fences will be setting up residence in the Gardens soon.

Detailed plans revealing the locations of the fences can be found as ever on TowersPlans.

Yet more obtrusive fencing to ruin the natural beauty of the Gardens, despite the fact there must hardly be a valid number of guests to venture into the Gardens to actually bring about such a need for additional fencing?
 
Oh for god sake. Look at all that lot.

Remind me again - how may accidents/falls have there been in the gardens over the past 20 years from someone falling over a wall???
 
It's an overreaction to the Warwick Castle incident. There's no need for them. Whatever happened to common sense?
 
This H&S thing has become ridiculous. Whatever happened to making something so that nobody could accidently hurt themselves? Just so that the site was 'safe'. Now its trying to prevent people that are acting like idiots from being injured, something which they can't take legal action for.
 
I am in no way defending the fences as I don't agree with them at all but I'd imagine this is Merlin's perspective: They got fined a whopping £350,000 in total for the Warwick Castle incident. This was the by far the biggest H&S fine handed out from a local authority prosecution in the whole of the UK between April 2008 and March 2013. They clearly do not want to take that risk again, and if they were ever to appear in court again for a similar incident it would not be favourable to them if it appeared that they had not done much to mitigate the risks. As I said I don't agree with the fences but you can kind of see why Merlin may see that they have no choice.

:)
 
Rob said:
I am in no way defending the fences as I don't agree with them at all but I'd imagine this is Merlin's perspective: They got fined a whopping £350,000 in total for the Warwick Castle incident. This was the by far the biggest H&S fine handed out from a local authority prosecution in the whole of the UK between April 2008 and March 2013. They clearly do not want to take that risk again, and if they were ever to appear in court again for a similar incident it would not be favourable to them if it appeared that they had not done much to mitigate the risks. As I said I don't agree with the fences but you can kind of see why Merlin may see that they have no choice.

:)
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Yet still no fences by the lake...
 
Tarin Maria said:
What about when someone jumps one of the fences and breaks a leg?
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you end up with sign over load, as every fence with have a signs every 10 foot along it length say "Caution. Climbing, sitting or leaning on fence may cause injury."

The factory acts (the fore runner of today H&S) was a wonderful thing, stopping dangerous working conditions for the poor worker for the benefit (profit) of rich factory owners. Shame it is now stopping Darwin's theory of evolution work correctly ;)
 
delta79 said:
you end up with sign over load, as every fence with have a signs every 10 foot along it length say "Caution. Climbing, sitting or leaning on fence may cause injury."

The factory acts (the fore runner of today H&S) was a wonderful thing, stopping dangerous working conditions for the poor worker for the benefit (profit) of rich factory owners. Shame it is now stopping Darwin's theory of evolution work correctly ;)
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_59847704_george.jpg

At least Darwin's theory of evolution finally got this Grandfather at Warwick Castle, eh? :unamused:

Yes, the new fences at Alton are overkill, but Merlin are a private attractions operator and with great profits comes great responsibility. Can we cut the mean spiritedness?
 
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Most of these fences are already in place, by the looks of things the original plans last year got rejected (Apart from those near the towers and battle galleons), and they have altered them slightly and resubmitted them. And now they have been granted permission.

The old plans had gaps where the plant pots and things were in the gardens, but I don't think the council liked them, now they are just plain long fences.

In person most of them look OK, and they are in the same style as the old fences that are in the gardens, however half of them seem to be in stupid places that I don't think people even walk past anyway.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Pretty sure they make that in a day on Fastrack sales alone.
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Even though you were joking, it may not actually be that far from the truth. Last year during the summer my business partner and I went for a look around Towers one day, obviously we rode The Smiler and did a few other things too but we were mostly there for a bit of theme park research. We started watching how many people were entering the Fastrack queues on certain rides, mainly The Smiler, and getting a rough number per hour. Taking into consideration how much the tickets were and working out an average we came to the conclusion that Towers were likely to be raking in approx £10,000 a day or between £50,000 to £70,000 per week over the summer. Money for nothing by basically selling fresh air.

You begin to realise why they're so keen to put staff in the queues doing the hard sell, like to inflate the queue times information, and reduce capacity on rides (like Oblivion). All the while giving you excuses like "ride dispatching is slower to due to health and safety" and "reducing costs due to the economy". It's greed, just sheer greed.
 
Indeed it is (and im not defending towers whatsoever here), but if you were a business that could rake in £10,000 a day from essentially - nothing, then you would do it - who wouldnt.... the problem is striking a balance between the fast track queue being so big it has such a negative impact on the normal queue, and thats something towers failed miserably at last year. Not sure what this year has been like so far....
 
People are obviously stupid enough to buy fast track though, aren't they.
 
Hmmm..... I wouldnt say stupid. I've bought it on days when I have been with friends who dont reguarly visit, and I have known judging by the queues that unfortunately, without fast track, we wouldnt have got on some of the main rides. Usually it would be a fast track for Nemmie, Air, Oblivion (unless staying in the hotels of course).

Thats why people buy it - dont forget many of us visit frequently and to be fair, its no big deal if we dont get on everything one day. For other people, they may visit once every 2 years and for them its a big deal, so they opt to buy fast track to ensure they get on everything during the day.

Its Alton who have the responsibility of ensuring there is a fair balance of fast track tickets being sold so they do not impact the normal queues too much. As we saw last year with too many fast track tickets being sold - fast track queues were large and main queues suffered as a result.
 
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