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Oakwood Discussion

I am not convinced there is room to grow the industry in the UK, especially at the moment with the economic reality we have. If Oakwood was bought by some billionaire as their plaything, you might be able to increase attendance but a good portion of it will come from somewhere else, I don't think there is a bunch of people sat on their sofas who will suddenly start visiting parks if there was a haul of new signature rides.

At one time, I think Oakwood could perhaps have been the Holiday World of the UK, at one time they were pretty much on a par and the Koch family really bet big and it has paid off. However, a lot of their growth has been driven by the water park.
 
I've only ever been once and have no intention of going back. Had a good day out but nothing to really tempt me back*.

They've been living off the reputation of Megafobia for years now, and in the 00s it probably bought a steady stream of annual visitors over. Nowadays, people can easily access better rides elsewhere. Speed was a good investment at the time but that coaster model has aged terribly.

I think it's obvious they're not making any money but I'd love it if they found $10 mil behind the sofa and built a decent airtime machine that could encourage regular visits.

*Apart from maybe that ride where you sit in a baking tray and skim across the water.
 
The location means the park has always relied pretty heavily on tourists in Pembrokeshire rather than day trippers. Even back in the late 90s / early 00s when the park was rapidly improving the park struggled to draw in more people from further afield (enthusiasts excepted - at the time Megafobia alone give the park something of a free pass amongst UK based enthusiasts who otherwise had limited access to modern wooden coasters). It doesn't help that some of the additions post-Mega were fairly questionable; Speed was a good call however Huss wasn't the right choice for Bounce whilst Drenched was a totally bizarre investment at a park with a mediocre climate (it must have been hugely expensive and I imagine they could have got something with much broader appeal for the same money)

Given the circumstances, a drop-off in investment seemed inevitable
 
Oakwood is in too much of an awkward location. I haven’t been in 14 years, I even had a weekend away in Pembrokeshire earlier this year and didn’t bother with Oakwood. I don’t feel like the park offers much and don’t even feel like adding a new coaster would interest me either.

It would need millions upon millions invested and multiple new, highly themed attractions/coasters added to entice me. That obviously won’t happen, and I don’t think it needs to happen either.

For the majority of people in Wales, Oakwood is something you did when you were a child with your family as a part of your Pembrokeshire holiday, or a part of a yearly school trip. I live in South Wales, Oakwood is a 2 hour drive, Alton Towers is a 2 hour and 40 minute drive. It’s a no brainier to drive the extra 40 minutes for something far superior. Pretty much for most parts of Wales, you can get to Towers/Drayton/Paultons/the Merlin London parks in a quicker/similar distance. Oakwood would need investment beyond anything in the parks entire history to pull people in across Wales and the rest of the UK.

I think Oakwood suites fine plodding along, keeping business through local tourism and the school trip season.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
Timings according to Google Maps
Swansea 1hr 6mins
Cardiff 1hr 44mins
Newport 1hr 47mins
Bristol 2hr 32mins
If I lived in Swansea I might conside Oakwood a reasonable day trip, not sure I would if I lived in Cardiff or Newport.
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I'm Bristol-based (albeit north Bristol and near the Severn bridges) and I've done it in 2 hours - am I driving too fast?
 
NuttySquirrel said:
I'm Bristol-based (albeit north Bristol and near the Severn bridges) and I've done it in 2 hours - am I driving too fast?
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I think the Maps locational marker for “Bristol” is a little further South than that… it’s nearer to the city centre.
 
Matt N said:
That is true about South and Mid Wales, but in terms of major population hubs (i.e. large towns and cities), my searching through Maps suggested it was only Swansea within a 2 hour drive. Cardiff came up as 2h 2m, although that could admittedly have been caused by congestion (I didn’t look too closely).

Even then, though, you’d only be reaching Swansea, Cardiff and Newport within 2 hours, which aren’t huge population centres compared to some others in England.

My point was more; had the park been located further east in Wales, it would still be reachable for the bulk of West Wales, would be very close to some of Wales’ most major population centres, and could also have tapped into a fair few English population centres as well.

I’m preparing a more in-depth post comparing the potential reach of Oakwood to the potential reach of Cardiff and Wrexham to show you what I mean, but it’s taking a lot longer than I’d anticipated… that probably won’t come until tomorrow, as it’s taking a surprisingly long time!
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Could I cordially suggest that it's a bit of a nonsense saying that present location is 'the wrong one' and they should have gone for x, y or z location?

Most present day UK theme parks were either something else which transformed in to a theme park or in some cases a leisure/theme park was built because the land was made available for one. It's not like being sat on the menu screen of RCT2 with all these different places to choose from.

Only really large/international theme parks like Disney/Universal/Europa are of such a scale that they consider multiple sites in any meaningful way for a theme park from scratch, rather than figuring out what they can make work on a piece of land available to them.

Oakwood is in the location it's in because the farming family who owned it wanted to try something different with their land. They didn't have the luxury of chosing whether to start up in a farm in Pembrookeshire or just north of the M25, otherwise no doubt they would have done that. They didn't start with a theme park either, it was a leisure facility with BMX track etc, with gradual addition of 'theme park' rides and facilities over the next decade.
 
WillPS said:
Could I cordially suggest that it's a bit of a nonsense saying that present location is 'the wrong one' and they should have gone for x, y or z location?

Most present day UK theme parks were either something else which transformed in to a theme park or in some cases a leisure/theme park was built because the land was made available for one. It's not like being sat on the menu screen of RCT2 with all these different places to choose from.

Only really large/international theme parks like Disney/Universal/Europa are of such a scale that they consider multiple sites in any meaningful way for a theme park from scratch, rather than figuring out what they can make work on a piece of land available to them.

Oakwood is in the location it's in because the farming family who owned it wanted to try something different with their land. They didn't have the luxury of chosing whether to start up in a farm in Pembrookeshire or just north of the M25, otherwise no doubt they would have done that. They didn't start with a theme park either, it was a leisure facility with BMX track etc, with gradual addition of 'theme park' rides and facilities over the next decade.
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I’m not saying that the present location is “the wrong one” by any means, but I was assessing whether the location is one of the things that holds Oakwood back compared to other UK parks. Personally, I definitely feel that it does to a degree, and had it hypothetically been located elsewhere in Wales, I feel that it could have had a greater draw for a greater percentage of the UK population.

I’m midway through doing some research comparing the potential draw of Oakwood to the potential draw of a park located in Cardiff (South East Wales) and Wrexham (North East Wales) to show what I mean. I will post this when I’ve finished; I meant for it to be part of a post I made last night, but it’s taking a lot longer to compile than I had expected…

For clarity, I’m not trying to suggest that the park is wrong for being located where it is, nor do I feel that its location is the sole issue it contends with. But I do feel that the park’s struggles may be partially as a result of its remote location, and I was assessing the extent to which a different location in Wales could have had greater draw, hypothetically speaking.

For some idea, I’ve already calculated that Oakwood only has about 5.5% of the UK population within a 3 hour drive, and about 2.3% of the UK population within a 2 hour drive. That must surely be a limiting factor determining how much they can grow?
 
But where's the site in Cardiff or Wrexham? It doesn't take an in-depth analysis to know pretty concretely that they'd have a much better reach there than in Pembrookeshire, but what use is that if there's no land available, or planning issues/reluctance on the part of the authorities... you can't just stick a dart in a map and say 'this is the most optimal location'.
 
WillPS said:
But where's the site in Cardiff or Wrexham? It doesn't take an in-depth analysis to know pretty concretely that they'd have a much better reach there than in Pembrookeshire, but what use is that if there's no land available, or planning issues/reluctance on the part of the authorities... you can't just stick a dart in a map and say 'this is the most optimal location'.
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That is a good point; I probably don’t need to post the in-depth analysis, then. Sorry to waste your time…

Land availability and planning flexibility are good points, but I know for a fact that theme parks have previously been proposed at or near both places, so there must be land available. A theme park called Legend Court was proposed near Newport in the early 2000s, and Wrexham was said to have been one of the considered sites for Disneyland Paris early on in its development (one of many, mind you; I don’t think that Wrexham ever got very far even among the British sites).

My point was more that I feel that the park could have been more successful had it hypothetically been built in a different location, and that the location the park is in now is one of the factors that inhibits it. I apologise for keeping on going round in circles… you’re probably right in that the issue doesn’t really need in-depth analysis.
 
Apologies - I'm not trying to suppress you Matt, feel free to post it and I would read it. I don't feel like your contributions are a waste of time and as AT86 says I can always just ignore it if it was.

My point is that locations of a theme park are literally and metaphorically set in stone; if it was somewhere else it'd literally be a different theme park. Oakwood's location wasn't a carefully decided thing, it was a matter of the farmer doing something different with their land and working with the audiences they could draw in rather than analysing what they could get if their farm was somewhere else. Moving it isn't an option, so analysis of a Welsh border theme park site is really a separate thing altogether.
 
I went to Oakwood at least twice in the 90s, once was before Megafobia. The bits I loved about Oakwood were not really "theme park" stuff, they had some great assault courses (almost Go Ape style but low enough not to need harnesses) and zip wires. There was (still is?) a toboggan ride and some other smaller but fun rides.
It was a small park but a fun day out when holidaying to Tenby and similar. But I think south Wales as a holiday destination has gone out of fashion?
There are still plenty of small theme parks in Devon and Cornwall.
 
jon81uk said:
It was a small park but a fun day out when holidaying to Tenby and similar. But I think south Wales as a holiday destination has gone out of fashion?
There are still plenty of small theme parks in Devon and Cornwall.
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I don’t know that that’s necessarily true. My family holidays in Pembrokeshire rather than Devon or Cornwall when we want a bit of seaside, and based on the crowds present at the beaches and in shops whenever we go, I’d say we are far from alone!

For reference, I was born in 2003, and I have been to the Pembrokeshire coastline countless times throughout my life; I couldn’t even tell you how many times we’ve holidayed in Tenby, Saundersfoot or similar, but I’d bet that the number is at least 15, probably getting on for 20. Possibly even higher than that, in fact!

By comparison, I have holidayed in Devon 3 times, from memory, and one of those was a holiday to Plymouth rather than a typical beach holiday. I don’t even remember ever going to Cornwall, but my parents tell me that we holidayed in the region once when I was very, very young. For some perspective, Devon is about as far from us as Pembrokeshire (both around 2.5 hours), and Cornwall is a good hour further.

However, to possibly counteract my earlier point about Oakwood’s location being an issue for it, I should probably say that despite having holidayed in Pembrokeshire countless times over the course of my life, I have only been to Oakwood once with my family in recent memory. My first ever trip there was actually a school trip in July 2016, where we went by coach and it took us nearly 3 hours to get there. The only other time I ever remember going was with my mum and nan on a dreary day in May 2019. By comparison, I’ve been to the likes of Folly Farm and Manor House Wildlife Park (other Pembrokeshire area tourist attractions) a number of times over the years.

I actually talked to my mum about Oakwood just the other day, and her first response was “That’s the one where we went on that ride like Saw and it made all those terrifying noises, wasn’t it? Yeah… I’m not rushing back any time soon”…
 
We say Oakwood is in a bad location , alright Alton is the middle of the UK it still for most people involves a lot of travelling, and if a park is worth visiting then people will do the distance. Worth the bluestone holiday park next door it could have been a great place to have a mini break and stay on site. It had a lot of potential but I think that’s fading away now
 
GaryH said:
We say Oakwood is in a bad location , alright Alton is the middle of the UK it still for most people involves a lot of travelling, and if a park is worth visiting then people will do the distance. Worth the bluestone holiday park next door it could have been a great place to have a mini break and stay on site. It had a lot of potential but I think that’s fading away now
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The point I’d make there, though, is that if you look at the 10 most populated places in Britain, Alton Towers is within 2 hours or so of a fair few of them (certainly Birmingham and some of the Northern ones like Manchester and Liverpool are pretty close), and it’s driveable (less than 3hrs) from a significant proportion of England.

Oakwood, on the other hand… the most populated place within 2 hours of it is Cardiff (13th in the UK), and only 5.5% of those living in the top 1000 most populated places in the UK live within 3 hours of it. Most of which are in Wales; within England, only a small part of the South West is less than 3 hours from Oakwood.

To be within 2 hours of Oakwood, you have to live in Wales… only about 2.3% of those living in the top 1000 most populated places in the UK are less than 2 hours from Oakwood.

I’d wager that this figure is immeasurably higher for Alton Towers. Even if it might not be the greatest theme park location in Britain, I think it’s actually pretty good when you think about where it sits in relation to some of the more populated places in Britain.
 
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Worth remembering that a large portion of Oakwood's customer base will be those holidaying in Wales - far harder to pin a number on holidaymakers in the area, but suffice to say it makes up a significant part of the economy in those areas.

It's totally valid to say that almost every theme park in England south of the Lakes and north of Cornwall will have a much greater potential reach, regardless.
 
jon81uk said:
There are still plenty of small theme parks in Devon and Cornwall.
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Having been to several small places last year in the SW and South Wales (Oakwood, Coney Beach, Barry Island, Brean, Crealy, Funder Park, Flambards, and Camel Creek) you don't get the impression any of them are doing particularly well and I'd wager a lot of that is down to location.
 
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