New Owners for Barry Island Pleasure Park

[Martyn B]

So, the future of this place is up in the air, again. As the council approved a £70m redevlopement of the site, turning it into a leisure centre, a cinema, restaurants, flats and a residential care home.

http://www.niamh-hannon.co.uk/c/barry-island-to-get-70m

Official link to the news site here: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/need- ... -30231971/ whether it works though is anyones guess, as it keeps killing the laptop everytime I open it!

 

[Lofty]

What a hole. Good Riddence!

Bit of insider info: They was going to "Do the whole park over", back in 2010 as part of "Duncan Bannatyne's Seaside Rescue", but it never went ahead. I know this because the company I work for were going to do the makeover, instead we went to Newquay and created Buccannear Bay. Ha!

 

[Martyn B]

Right, in a surprising twist, this place is reopening this Easter, with 10 new rides, supposedly worth £2m.

And the new guy in charge has said that he'll invest £20m in 3 years.

http://riderater.co.uk/in-brief/

Now that is a lot of money to invest in a small grotty seaside funfair, so we'll see how this pans out.

 

[marc]

^that was also said about adventure island and look what happened there.

 

[Ian]

^ So has Miller taken over Barry Island? If so, this is worth watching.

 

[marc]

^No he has not sorry to say.

But when it was announced AI was going to get investment people thought he was mad to invest into the dump that was there. I just used AI as an example.

 

[Ian]

Ah right, cheers Marc. In which case, that little sprinkle of excitement has gone.

However, £20m over three years is quite significant (and more than say Thorpe or CWOA's annual investment budget), so who knows?

 

[nadroJ]

*crosses fingers and prays for them to reopen the classics*

 

[Martyn B]

^ I doubt there's much of them left given the state they were in 4 years ago.

And I think I remember reading about the Ghost train burning to the ground.

 

[furie]

I remember that the guy who took over Southport Pleasureland wanted to invest similar amounts but the council turned him down. So instead he rented the land short term (two years I think it was) without paying the license for the ground or making any investment beyond the rent then having showmen come on.

That worked well for Southport council and the hotel complex due to open in 2008 didn't it?

Goes to show that even with minimum investment, there can be something good come out of these old parks. With luck, this will help turn around the area.

 

[Ian]

Another article: http://www.itv.com/news/wales/update/20 ... e-85678465

 

[Mysterious Sue]

I'm bored and really trolling through the old topics today...

According to their website, there's a go-gator in their ride line-up, but it's not listed on RCDB. Any ideas fellow goons?
They have a KMG Freak Out too.

http://www.barryislandpleasurepark.co.uk/rides.html

Also, here's an article from the opening over Easter and looks like a good respose:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/w ... ns-8980053

 

[Martyn B]

Looks like there's a Star Flyer there too.

I completely forgot about this, I'm surprised it actually happened tbh, but kudos to them, it looks ok and there's more rides to come by the sounds of things.