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Park People www.parkworld-online.com


I think


you have got to give credit to John Broome for creating what was the first UK theme park as such [Alton Towers]. I remember he had machines to get rid of chewing gum. I didn’t even know these things existed!


John Bollom


Blackpool Pleaasure Beach c.1937. Leonard Thompson was a founder AAPP member and his son Geoffrey a leading light within BALPPA





Image as used in the book Blackpool Pleasure Beach – More Than Just An Amusement Park


your park. There is nothing wrong, because we are at the seaside, with giving our restaurant a bit of a maritime theme, putting in few ship’s anchors etc. JB – It’s more branding than theming isn’t it? MH – We are trying not to make things look so much like a fairground anymore, so we’ve got rocks around things, flowers, landscaping. GS – I think we have evolved from being fairgrounds at the sea to amusement parks, and now we are adding theming, but you are right they are not true theme parks as you might see in some other places.


Did the arrival of Disneyland Paris make much of an impact in the UK? JB – I don’t think that it has really had the impact that anyone expected. I remember going to the opening with dad and we all thought this was going to be the be all and end all for Europe and it hasn’t, for whatever reason. I don’t know if it’s the cost or the weather, but people I speak to all say the same: they’d rather go to Florida. GS – I think the inland British parks have had far more impact than Disneyland ever did.


What was the reason for the formation of Europarks? JC – It was formed by BALPPA together with the German association VDFU as a way of getting together to have a say in what might or might not happen transpire within the European Union (EU). GS – What we worried about was legislation coming out of Brussels without any monitoring whatsoever. It served its purpose very well and we did actually chase down a few threats, but now IAAPA Europe has taken over and carries a lot more weight.


How has industry changed in Britain in recent times? GS – There’s been an enormous social revolution in the last 20 years. Tastes have changed, there’s more


The Corkscrew at Alton Towers, pictured here in 1981, really put the park on the map


Image courtesy National Fairground Archive


disposable income, people are travelling more overseas. MH – We mustn’t forget Sunday shopping, that’s affected us. Sunday used to be our day. JB – We used to be the only game in town; we’re not now. MH – Now Saturdays are better days because of all the divorces, you get all the weekend dads down. JC – I don’t think we want to be encouraging divorces now do we! MH – And then at half-term you get all the grandparents bringing the grandkids, because their parents are all out working. GS – The grey market has become quite a key market, however when the education act came in the early ‘90s, stopping trips to the seaside, we lost the school groups almost overnight. There used to be a healthy trade with coaches coming down to the coast from South London, you’d be very busy in June and July; every Monday to Friday you’d be packed. That trade has basically gone. I have no idea, but I am guessing the Olympics will not be good for us this summer either.


BPB c. 1937


A lot of British parks have closed in the last decade. How do you survive at the seaside? MH – Margate, Rhyl, Redcar, Spanish City; it seems lke every year we loose one don’t we? Because people are sitting on property that’s worth a lot of money, they sometimes have to make quite a hard decision. JB – I think there is now a genuine spark of recognition of the importance of our industry to seaside economies. In a lot of seaside towns we are the major employer, and when an attraction goes the affects are huge. MH – The typical seaside park is 5 acres, but we’ve got a lot of big parks around us – Thorpe, Chessington, Legoland – and we simply can’t compete with them, so we target families. GS – We know though that if we have good weather – sunshine – then when the kids are off school we will


26 MARCH 2012


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