Barry Island Amusement Park is the latest to run into financial difficulties and is faccing closure
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6679749.stm
Moderator: dave771
furie wrote:I think Barry, along with Porth Cawl, Rhyl and others have just spent too long sitting on their backsides complaining about lack of trade, but never doing anything.
This is at a council level, rather than the parks. When you visit these places and see a run down, poorly equipped amusement park, you don't think well of either the park or the town. You end up in a case of ever decreasing circles.
The councils have to support the parks, and to help them survive. In Rhyl it was to stop the junkies from moving into the area around the park, and to concentrate there, rather than on a several million pound monorail which has never run (well, it ran... out of money and is now a monument to !*@% poor planning).
I've never been to Barry, so can't really comment, but surely the tourist officials are the people who should be getting the people there. Is it a case of "if we build an Asda, people will come"? Because that's not how the successful resorts have re-marketted themselves (Skegness, Southend, Brighton).
Blackpool is seeing holiday visitors drop massively. Why? Well, they re-branded as a destination for clubbers and hen/stag parties. Now they wonder why families no longer wish to visit the vomit strewn streets.
People want to go to the seaside, but they expect a certain level of standards. They want rides which look in good condition. They want tidy seafronts with curious little things to attract them Punch and Judy is still massively popular with kids, why replace them with a concrete and steel statue depicting the struggle of the sea against the land (or some other BS)? Regeneration is good, but not at the expense of the things that brought people there. It needs to be clean, tidy and friendly, but interesting too.
Some councils seem to understand this and embrace and encourage their past, others are just sadly misguided.
EAS wrote:Well, here's Marcus's Times article from 12005 - looks as though it is proving a success and drawing people in to the town:
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/l ... 555272.ece
Properly marketed, I'm sure the Scenic could be Margate's great draw... more fun to me that a view from a tower!
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