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Pleasurewood Hills

Enter Valhalla said:
They could make it work. I don’t think it matters too much anyway. The park are finally making a significant investment which will hopefully improve the ride greatly.
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It will improve the ride experience yet it won't bring anyone new into the park, which is what it so desperately needs.

it's NEW rides and more the park needs, unfortunately unless your a enthusiast most won't even recognise its been painted let alone had a new train as majority of guests are holiday makers not local
 
Mattie boy said:
It will improve the ride experience yet it won't bring anyone new into the park, which is what it so desperately needs.

it's NEW rides and more the park needs, unfortunately unless your a enthusiast most won't even recognise its been painted let alone had a new train as majority of guests are holiday makers not local
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I sort of agree and disagree with this at the same time.

On the one hand, I think you’re right that new rides is what will get people in. Take a look at Oakwood, they spent £1.2 million on a Megafobia retrack which no doubt improved the longevity of the ride, but did nothing to appeal to non-enthusiasts. Now with the announcement of Oakwood’s closure, in hindsight that £1.2 million would probably have been better spent on a new ride of some sort.

On the other hand however, Wipeout is an old coaster dating back to 1988. It’s had three different locations and has been exposed to the harsh British weather for nearly 40 years. The ride is probably knackered. If PWH want it to remain their signature attraction for years to come, they need to be looking after it. Like with Megafobia, if the park’s star attraction becomes less reliable or (even more) uncomfortable to ride, this could be a real problem for the park commercially.

Whilst I appreciate that this refurb isn’t going to pull people in like a new ride would, I do kind of think it’s necessary if PWH are planning to stay open for the long term. If they think the park will only be open for a few more years, then yes of course use that money to install quick-fix new attractions that can be easily moved. I don’t think that’s their intention though.
 
Quantum said:
Pleasure beach Great Yarmouth is better value for money and actually have new rides. I'm not even sure what the long term plan is for Pleasurewood hills I'm not even sure why Loopings hang onto it.
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Agreed totally, seeing the decline in PWH particularly the last 10 years is awful. It's in a shocking state in many areas of the park
 
There are some stark parallels between PWH and Oakwood, I feel. Both are coastal parks that rely largely on the holidaymaker market rather than being destinations in their own right, both are quite far from most major population centres, and both have arguably had the feeling of being a bit downtrodden for a number of years.

However, there’s one key thing that PWH has going for it over Oakwood, in my view, and that is that Looping Group are at least showing some tendency towards regular investment. Yes, it might not be major investment, or even investment into new rides full stop, but investing into refurbishments and sprucing the place up is not nothing, and Megafobia aside, is more than Oakwood managed in its final 5-10 years (certainly, PWH have done more than Oakwood post-COVID).

From my first (and thus far only) visit last August, the park definitely doesn’t give off an impression of great prosperity, and has large swathes of considerable decrepitude, but the sprucing up that Looping Group have been doing should hopefully rectify this in time. I do feel that Looping’s spruce ups imply that the park may be in a better position than Oakwood in the short to medium term, at least.
 
Matt N said:
There are some stark parallels between PWH and Oakwood, I feel. Both are coastal parks that rely largely on the holidaymaker market rather than being destinations in their own right, both are quite far from most major population centres, and both have arguably had the feeling of being a bit downtrodden for a number of years.

However, there’s one key thing that PWH has going for it over Oakwood, in my view, and that is that Looping Group are at least showing some tendency towards regular investment. Yes, it might not be major investment, or even investment into new rides full stop, but investing into refurbishments and sprucing the place up is not nothing, and Megafobia aside, is more than Oakwood managed in its final 5-10 years (certainly, PWH have done more than Oakwood post-COVID).

From my first (and thus far only) visit last August, the park definitely doesn’t give off an impression of great prosperity, and has large swathes of considerable decrepitude, but the sprucing up that Looping Group have been doing should hopefully rectify this in time. I do feel that Looping’s spruce ups imply that the park may be in a better position than Oakwood in the short to medium term, at least.
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Without wanting to stray too much off topic, it is unfair to say that Aspro didn’t invest in Oakwood.

In the past ten years, Oakwood had Spooky Street with a new (second hand) coaster and a permanent horror maze, a Disko ride, the retracking of Megafobia, Speed was repainted and Bounce was refurbished rather than being scrapped, not to mention loads of new events like Oktoberfest, new Halloween event, lots of summer late nights etc.

Compare this to what’s been done at Pleasurewood Hills over the last ten years, have they really done that much more? I think the level of investment at Oakwood was as good as, if not better than PWH. Both parks have received insufficient investment, but I honestly don’t think PWH have really had that much more than Oakwood.
 
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Enter Valhalla said:
In the past ten years, Oakwood had Spooky Street with a new (second hand) coaster and a permanent horror maze, a Disko ride
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A knackered out old pinfari and mirror maze wasn't going to bring anyone back to the park, especially when the rest of the place was looking so run down.

They needed to appeal to people who remember the park as it was, bring back Jakes Town and some sort of Nutty Jake attraction along with some more indoors attractions.

I've never understood the mentality of these parks that don't invest properly unless attendances go up. If you don't properly invest, they'll never go up.
 
MaxPower said:
I've never understood the mentality of these parks that don't invest properly unless attendances go up. If you don't properly invest, they'll never go up.
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The problem is that I think a lot of these parks lack the money to invest much at all even if they wanted to. Pleasurewood lost money last year and the year before, and Oakwood also lost money in 2023 (albeit did make a ÂŁ700k profit in 2022). I think it's become much harder to run a small independent theme park in Britain in the last 15-20 years or so, particularly ones that rely so heavily on holidaymakers like Pleasurewood and Oakwood, for a myriad of reasons.

I've said it before, but outside of a few notable exceptions, I feel that a considerable proportion of non-Merlin parks in this country could be described as surviving rather than thriving. My impression is that many of these parks really are just ticking over, or just about clinging on, and I don't think they're really in a position to be making big investments or carving out much of a long-term vision.
 
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The looping group only see Pleasurewood Hills as a holiday destination theme park and maybe locals still visit on a weekend.
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Like they only open 125 days this year so it’s no wonder they don’t get brand new attractions but they could have tried to buy rides from Flambards or Oakwood.
 
Looping group chucked millions at Drayton Manor despite that being in a difficult spot financially, now it's started going in the right direction again.

Folly Farm, which is in a similar isolated location to Oakwood, is successful because it's receives investment and is well maintained.

Loopings and Aspro could raise the capital to rennovate the parks and make them more appealing and profitable if they had long term visions for them.
 
Loopings slashed the operating calendar and hours a few seasons back, they did run it on more days and better hours at the start.

Locals rarely go as it's the laughing stock here due to the investment and nothing new,.least of all the state of the place
 
Is Wipeout the first Boomerang to have 3 different types of train? Opened in Glasgow with an Arrow train, then got a Vekoma when it opened at PWH and now a Sunkid one.
 
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