Oakwood Discussion

[QTXAdsy]

People may liken Oakwood to other, more successful parks in tourist-centric, coastal locations like Paultons Park, but I’d argue that it is considerably more disadvantaged in terms of location and nearby captive audience than many of these parks. To cite a few case studies:

• Paultons Park: The South Hampshire conurbation, the 7th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 856,000 residents, is located within 30 minutes of the park. The Bournemouth/Poole conurbation, the 16th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 466,000 residents, is also located within 30 minutes to an hour. A not insignificant proportion of the Greater London conurbation, the most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 9.7 million residents, is also located within a 1.5-2 hour drive.
• Blackpool Pleasure Beach: The park is located slap bang within the Blackpool conurbation, the 34th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 239,000 residents. Large swathes of both the Greater Manchester conurbation, the 2nd most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 2.6 million residents, and the Liverpool conurbation, the 6th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 864,000 residents, live within a 1 hour drive of the park.
• Flamingo Land: The West Yorkshire conurbation, the 4th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 1.8 million residents, is located within a 1-1.5 hour drive of the park. The Tyneside conurbation, the 8th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 774,000 residents, is located within a 2 hour drive of the park. The Teesside conurbation, the 18th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 376,000 residents, is located within a 1 hour drive of the park.
• Adventure Island: The park is located slap bang in the middle of the Southend-on-Sea conurbation, the 28th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 295,000 residents. The Greater London conurbation, the most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 9.7 million residents, is almost entirely within a 2 hour drive, and some of the more northern and eastern parts of this conurbation get within 1-1.5 hours and even under an hour in some cases.

In Oakwood’s case, the largest conurbation within a 2 hour drive is the Cardiff conurbation, the 17th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 447,000 residents. The only other two are the Newport conurbation, the 26th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 307,000 residents, and the Swansea conurbation, the 27th most populous urban sprawl in the UK with 300,000 residents.

Of these, only Swansea is located less than 1.5 hours away, and none are located within an hour. The immediate surrounding area of the park is very rural, so that captive audience to prop the park up outside of peak season just isn’t really there.

The only other semi-major UK parks I’d put in a similar boat location-wise are Pleasurewood Hills and Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach. The largest conurbation within a 2 hour drive is the Norwich conurbation, the 38th largest urban sprawl in the UK with 213,000 residents, and the only other two notable ones in the top 75 are Ipswich (42nd with 179,000 residents) and Colchester (65th with 122,000 residents). Norwich is at least within an hour of those two, though, whereas Oakwood does not have any major conurbation within an hour.

From an observer’s view, Pleasurewood Hills in particular does not exactly appear to be thriving either. Similarly to Oakwood, the park has pretty much ceased midweek operation outside of peak season, and there hasn’t been an awful lot of investment or momentum there in recent years. I can’t speak too much for Great Yarmouth, but from everything I’ve seen and heard, Pleasurewood appears to be in a similar boat to Oakwood despite being owned by the Looping Group.

Source for the figures: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom

To add to that, M&D's, had it been any good, would have been up there too given its location just south of Glasgow and easy access from across the Central belt and even the north of England, it would have been a strong contender park to have a higher attendance along with that list there.

 

[KolonelKlink]

Investment, maybe, but they certainly seem to advertise a fair bit in Pembrokeshire. Whenever I’ve been to the area, I quite often see signs for “Oakwood Theme Park: Wales’ BIGGEST Family Day Out!” scattered around towns like Tenby.

But if those signs have been there for years, they just become part of the street furniture and passers-by glaze over.

The location also isn’t the be all and end all given Wales’ tourism industry (outside Cardiff) is predicated entirely on car travel. For instance, three of the top ten most visited attractions in Wales are branches of Zip World - I went to their site at Penrhyn Quarry a few years back which is very much out of the way and only accessible by car (even if you happen to be in Snowdonia) but the place was heaving, and their marketing was everywhere in the area (leaflets in every B&B, TV ads).

And this is part of the problem for Oakwood - in the last decade a number of attractions like Zip World have opened up offering far more exhilarating experiences and given the choice of doing the world’s fastest zip line or some old rides in a tired theme park that last saw a major investment 18 years ago, it’s an easy choice for a lot of families.

As far as more limited opening hours go, Oakwood’s owners Aspro seem to be implementing a narrower schedule across the board - one of their French parks, Walygator, didn’t open for Easter at all either and is only doing weekends until peak season.

Aspro are also notorious under-investors - none of their parks have seen any big spends in the last decade as far as I’m aware. It leaves Oakwood in the precarious position facing Lightwater Valley and Pleasurewood Hills - falling attendance and reliance on seasonal tourists breeds lack of willingness to invest breeds no reason to sample the parks breeds further falls in attendance.

 

[ScottishChris]

I think people also underestimate the marketing behemoth that is Merlin. Towers, Chessington and Thorpe are all around four hour drives away. It seems far, but I have no doubt people will drive those distances as the perceive the product to be superior. It isn't, it's just different.

 

[jon81uk]

I think people plan a summer holiday to Tenby or other towns nearby and then choose to visit Oakwood as part of that summer holiday. Hence the park prioritising opening during the school summer holidays. My only visits to Oakwood were as part of family holidays in the area.

Whereas places like Zip World are a big draw in themselves, people will plan a trip to Zipworld and then work out how to make it happen by finding out where to stay nearby.
20-30 years ago people might have done that for Oakwood as Megaphobia was a big draw. But now not so much. As an adult with no kids I would go to Zipworld and their associated attractions, but I wouldn't make a special trip to Wales just for Oakwood.

 

[Enter Valhalla]

Oakwood have been closing on off peak weekdays for quite a few years now. This is fairly normal. What’s more unusual is the park not being open in the Easter holidays. I think this could be the first time they’ve ever done this.

Interesting to hear that Folly Farm get 500,000 visitors a year. I very highly doubt that Oakwood even gets half of that annual attendance.

Nevertheless, it’s still a nice park, it just doesn’t have the buzz that it used to.

 

[Alphe86]

We went Oakwood last year since staying in the area and had a good time.
Boy loved Megafobia and the slides.
Will be a shame if it goes.