As much as their momentum is exciting and they're pumping out brilliantly executed stuff, I personally question whether Paultons will ever "beat" Towers as "the UK's best and largest theme park". Or at very least, I question whether it's the foregone conclusion that some make it out to be. I'm not saying it won't happen, but I think the hype is perhaps slightly premature at present.
For starters, their location is too poor relative to Towers, I feel. They aren't badly located per se, with Southampton and Portsmouth on their doorstep and London not being too far away, but from the standpoint of becoming a national tier theme park like Alton Towers, I think their location is slightly lacking. While they aren't that far from London, they aren't really overly close to London either, and for anyone north of Birmingham (which is not an insignificant cross section of the population), I'd wager the drive to Paultons is too far to be feasible and for the park to have much reach outside of these areas. A location like Alton Towers', or the proposed site of Universal's project up in Bedford, capture a substantial percentage of the UK population within a reasonable catchment area in a way that Paultons Park's location doesn't.
There are also a few things I think I'd want to see from Paultons before declaring that they're in contention to earn the reputation of "the UK's best and largest theme park". I personally think they'd need to widen their target demographic a little and build slightly more for older children to open themselves up to that "whole family" demographic. At present, I'd argue that the park is more of a "young family" park than a "whole family" park, and has limited appeal for families with older children.
If I'm being hypercritical, I'd also argue that I think Paultons would need to build something a little bit bolder and more daring to take Towers' crown. They are undeniably building some brilliant stuff, but I'd argue that nothing they've currently done is overly bold or daring on the countrywide or international stage. I don't necessarily mean big thrill rides, just a statement attraction that really grabs countrywide and/or international attention and tells people that Paultons Park means business. As much as people can talk about "the experience" of Alton Towers in the 90s, I think the thing that really earned them their name was those bold, daring attraction installations. Corkscrew, Congo River Rapids, The Haunted House, Nemesis, Oblivion and the like were big, bold additions that were real trailblazers and garnered huge attention. Whereas I'd argue that a lot of Paultons Park's recent additions, while excellent in terms of finish, have been a bit more on the conservative side in the grand scheme of things.
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