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
en.m.wikipedia.org
