The theme park has been closed for over a 12 months, however its future stays unsure as nature begins to reclaim the much-loved 39-year-old UK attraction.
The park has now been left to overgrow (Picture: John Myers)
A 12 months has handed because the closure of the much-loved theme park, but its future stays shrouded in uncertainty as nature steadily reclaims the deserted web site.
It got here as an enormous shock to locals and guests alike when it was introduced the decades-old Pembrokeshire attraction in Wales could be shutting its gates for good in March 2025.
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Regardless of having fun with appreciable success through the years, the park had been on a gradual decline, citing “unrelenting financial challenges” because the driving power behind its closure.
Oakwood Theme Park in Pembrokeshire, Wales, first flung open its doorways to the general public on April 14, 1987, as a modest leisure attraction. Almost 40 years in the past, the location boasted a narrow-gauge railway ferrying guests from the automotive park to a handful of smaller points of interest, together with go-karting, water slides and a bobsleigh run.
Issues have been taken up a notch through the Nineties with the introduction of the long-lasting rollercoaster Megafobia, constructed at a price of roughly £1.7m. Earlier than lengthy, it was joined by a bunch of different, far greater and bolder points of interest geared toward true thrill-seekers, drawing guests from each nook of the UK.
In 2006, Oakwood Theme Park unveiled Velocity: No Limits, a rollercoaster which on the time held the excellence of being the steepest in your complete UK. Following the park’s closure, it was subsequently bought and relocated to an amusement park in Agen, France, generally known as Walygator Sud-Ouest.
Regardless of greater than a 12 months passing since its abrupt closure, a number of of those points of interest stay in fragments or have but to be demolished. Different rides, nevertheless, have been granted a second likelihood, together with Drenched, Treetops, the Pirate Ship, and the beloved Snake River Falls.
Throughout its heyday the park attracted 1000’s of holiday makers to the situation, which now sits awaiting redevelopment whereas remaining below the management of Aspro Parks, a Spanish leisure conglomerate.
This identical agency owns 68 further parks all through Europe, suggesting this Welsh web site might not be amongst their highest priorities.
It first opened in 1987 (Picture: WIKIPEDIA/WillMcC)
Aspro acquired the park from the McNarma household in 2008, who established it through the Eighties as a way of diversifying his land holdings. The household enterprise went on to flourish as a thriving enterprise till it turned financially unviable.
Aspro launched an announcement saying: “In your complete historical past of Aspro we’ve got by no means closed any park or attraction. We, and our devoted crew of workers has strived to beat quite a few challenges to proceed to carry pleasure to households and guests throughout the area and nation.
“Sadly, we may not see a sustainable approach ahead and can search to enhance our different parks utilizing the property and, the place potential, crew elsewhere. We’re conscious that Oakwood has been a much-loved vacation spot for generations and a ceremony of passage for a lot of younger guests. It is for that reason we really feel such a way of disappointment.”
Over latest years, households’ leisure preferences have advanced, probably pushed by advancing know-how and the comfort of home-based leisure actions. Consequently, theme parks are experiencing declining customer numbers, which may herald the closure of further points of interest within the coming years.
Di Clements, county councillor for Pembrokeshire’s Martletwy ward — the world the place the theme park was positioned — weighed in on the state of affairs. He stated: “Domestically there was little dialogue and remark about the way forward for the outdated Oakwood web site.
“No plans have been made public or any that I’m conscious of. Different native points of interest have, through the years, grow to be widespread with guests and locals alike, so Oakwood’s closure did not actually have that a lot of an affect regionally, and it had been in regular decline anyway.
“While a few of the outdated rides have been eliminated, there are nonetheless a lot of constructions outstanding to the skyline. Ideally, if there are not any future plans for the location as a theme park, these needs to be eliminated. It isn’t significantly enticing to have rusting and rotting constructions seen in such a phenomenal space.”
The councillor urged that what would really profit the area is an “all-weather attraction” for Pembrokeshire.
However, hypothesis is mounting that the location may very well be redeveloped to develop Bluestone Nationwide Park Resort, a vacation vacation spot additionally located in the identical South West county.
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