A report put before Tynwald, the Isle of Man parliament, has concluded that plans to develop a theme park on the island would not be viable.
The report follows a motion by Tynwald in July 2009 in which the Department of Tourism and Leisure (DTL) was requested to investigate ways of establishing such an attraction for younger children and their families, to complement the facilities available on the island to other age groups.
The DTL's enquiries included approaches to both K. W. Reader (Reader) - former owners of the island's Crescent Leisure Centre and operators of Dunes Adventure Island in South Shields - and visitor attractions operator, Merlin Entertainments (Merlin).
However, Reader had no interest in discussing the proposal and Merlin indicated that - while it was always interested in new development opportunities - a viable business case could not be made for one on the Isle of Man because it would be looking for a market size of more than seven million people within two hour's drive.
After examining the costs of building, running, operating and staffing a theme park, in addition to the demographics involved, the report comes to three main conclusions.
If the island was to develop a theme park as a key attraction - it says - it would have to be one which competes with similar parks in both the UK and Europe, otherwise there would be no motivation for visitors to travel to the island specifically to visit the park. The level of initial investment required would need large numbers of off-island visitors for it to have any chance of being financially viable.
The report also believes that people will not travel to the island to visit a sub-standard product when they can go to an established, good quality theme park closer to home. It also points out the expectation by visitors of the periodic introduction of new and improved rides, involving an ongoing expense in their development. As examples it quotes the costs of 'Thirteen' at Alton Towers, £15m; the 'Saw' rollercoaster at Thorpe Park, £13.5m; and Flamingo Land's 'Mumbo Jumbo', £15m.
Finally, the report points out that not only are theme parks closed during the colder months, but the high cost of electricity compared with the UK, the island's higher minimum wage and the low number of people living in the surrounding area mean that it would be difficult for the proposed park to become a viable business without significant ongoing investment from the government, something which has already been ruled out.
The report ends by stating that "the intention of Isle of Man Tourism as part of the Department of Economic Development is not to seek further to establish a theme park on the island", although it adds that future planning policy should perhaps include "provision for small scale themed attraction development at appropriate locations".
