Oakwood Discussion

[Quantum]

How do you scale down when most of the rides have either been removed or beyond repair?

 

[Poisson]

How do you scale down when most of the rides have either been removed or beyond repair?

Perfect time to change scale. Re-orientate the park to be more within its means.

 

[Matt N]

How do you scale down when most of the rides have either been removed or beyond repair?

To my knowledge, only 2 rides have been removed (Drenched and Bounce), and I would doubt that any of the others are “beyond repair” given the park was operating less than a year ago.

There are still plenty of usable foundations left at Oakwood, for my money. I’m not saying that that means it will definitely reopen, but if the right person came with the right business plan (could be RLP, could be someone else), it’s definitely still salvageable at present, in my view.

 

[JamesP]

To my knowledge, only 2 rides have been removed (Drenched and Bounce), and I would doubt that any of the others are “beyond repair” given the park was operating less than a year ago.

There are still plenty of usable foundations left at Oakwood, for my money. I’m not saying that that means it will definitely reopen, but if the right person came with the right business plan (could be RLP, could be someone else), it’s definitely still salvageable at present, in my view.

From drone and ‘urbex’ videos on YouTube, the latest of which was posted about a week ago, you are right. Some rides have been dismantled but they are all sitting in the old coach park. The only one I couldn’t immediately spot was the track of the crocodile coaster (which has been removed) but the trains are definitely there. Even bounce and hydro are sitting there still.

Even if the RLP thing is all nonsense, Aspro seems to be treating the park like they are keen to find a buyer - rides stored in the coach park but having not left site, lawns being mown throughout the park and apparently Megafobia occasionally cycling (though that I’ve only read about and not seen evidence of). Those are not things you’d bother with as an owner if you’d already decided to just gut the place and sell the land. I think for the love of the park I have, need to keep my hopes up!

One last thought I had about the RLP thing is that, even if it’s people messing about or not a serious bid - it is keeping Oakwood talked about. I check regularly for any sign of news to do with the park and from about a week after the announcement till the RLP news articles it just never got mentioned at all. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to keep it in people’s conscious, particularly local politicians that will quickly move on to the next thing.

 

[Matt N]

Whether RLP’s ideas materialise or not, they do appear to have a plan with budgets given, for what it’s worth: https://revive.wales/#

I’ll admit I think it sounds pretty ambitious, with the plan totalling £250m. I have my personal scepticism about whether a £250m investment into Oakwood, or investment on anything like that scale, would provide an adequate financial return or be feasible… I would have thought that any feasible investment into reopening would be far smaller. With that said, they have supposedly submitted their plans to the Welsh Government, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see if anything materialises from it.

I admit that some aspects of RLP’s public persona do not inspire a huge amount of confidence (I find their sheer level of transparency a tad odd, for example), but I’d be willing to attribute that to potential inexperience to some extent rather than automatically assuming that they’re an illegitimate actor. I admit that I don’t know if RLP are legitimate, but at the same time, I have no proof that they’re not legitimate either, so I think they should still be treated as a potential option given the recency of their proposal and how we’ve only really known about them for around a month. They might be fakers, or they might yet pull something out of the bag. We don’t yet know.

 

[dantheman38]

RLPs plans are clearly a complete fabrication. To get a reasonable ROI on £250m, you'd probably need to make at least £20m profit a year. Even £20m revenue would be 500,000 guests a year with an average spend of £40, you'd need 2m plus guests to be anywhere near turning £20m profit which Oakwood has absolutely no chance of achieving.

Oakwood can turn a profit of a couple of million a year and has done quite recently even under Aspro. An investment of c.£30m on those figures might be reasonable and could probably get you 3-4 decent rides plus upping the standard of what's already there.

 

[Matt N]

RLPs plans are clearly a complete fabrication. To get a reasonable ROI on £250m, you'd probably need to make at least £20m profit a year. Even £20m revenue would be 500,000 guests a year with an average spend of £40, you'd need 2m plus guests to be anywhere near turning £20m profit which Oakwood has absolutely no chance of achieving.

Oakwood can turn a profit of a couple of million a year and has done quite recently even under Aspro. An investment of c.£30m on those figures might be reasonable and could probably get you 3-4 decent rides plus upping the standard of what's already there.

I agree with what you say, and I definitely have my doubts around the feasibility of the mooted £250m, and RLP’s outlined plan overall. If you’d asked me previously how much a plan to reopen Oakwood would cost, I’d have shaved the 0 off the end of that number to get to a reinvestment level I’d have called feasible for a first phase of reopening. Perhaps £50m at a push, but £250m does seem too expensive to be particularly feasible for a park of Oakwood’s calibre.

But even if their plan seems ambitious, that’s not to say that I think they wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything. There is quite a chasm between nothing and £250m, so if RLP are legitimate, I don’t see why they couldn’t reopen and invest into the park in some capacity, even if not in the elaborate capacity they currently outline.

Do I think it’s likely that RLP’s current plan, as outlined on the website, will come to fruition in its entirety? Not particularly. But do I think that RLP (or another investor, if RLP prove to be fakers) could reopen the park and make it work? I think it’s very possible. With the right people and the right plan, I think there’s still a viable park in Oakwood yet!

 

[WillPS]

RLP are not a legal entity are they?

This would surely be the very first stop... even Mellors set up a ltd company to represent their bid for DLP. It was wound up when the bid failed. These things are pretty straightforward and inexpensive to achieve.

I don't see how meaningful negotiations would take place without registration.

 

[JamesP]

The £250m is clearly way over the top, but actually delving into the figures on the website, much of it is for future or potential, so the actual sum for initial park is probably more viable:

“Where Does the £250M Go?

• £76M core construction (rides, hotel, STEM, HQ, infrastructure)

• £74M contingency fund held by government to manage risk and build resilience

• £20M for sustainability: solar, water systems, composting, EV transport, zero waste

• £5M digital ticketing, guest apps, POS, security, and operational software

• £25M reserved for future expansion: hotel wing, indoor zones, new IP lands”

For a start, I make that £200m. £74m is contingency, £25m for ‘future’ and £20m for sustainability (which you are unlikely to be committed too, and plans are already in place to build large wind turbines nearby). So that leaves £81m, but that includes a hotel, something I don’t think would be viable anyway, but would certainly make up a big chunk of that figure. The latest accounts for Oakwood on Companies house stated that the assets (land, rides etc) equated to £26m - so that’s about the figure to keep in mind, plus the millions to bring it up to scratch. It reads more like inflated figures for good local press about the ‘opportunity’.

Regarding RLP I am self aware enough to know I am giving the benefit of doubt because I want it to be true. However, I have no more evidence of it being a random on the internet than I do them being genuine for now. I know there are quite a few question marks. However I run an architectural practice specialising in conservation and charity projects, and more often than not they are led by enthusiastic locals with no experience in building. Similarly, I still think it’s possible this can be well meaning enthusiastic local investors without the skills of website design and presentation (lots of criticism of AI use - doesn’t seem to stop our biggest UK park operator). For now, till proved otherwise I hope it is possible. Of all the parks where that approach can be shown to work, it’s Oakwood set up by farmers with no leisure experience at all.