Detailed plans have yet to be unveiled but here is what is known.
The Gateway Holiday Park is to change its brand to 'Gateway Resort' as of Easter 2016 and the theme park development is expected to take two years to complete. The park's theme has yet to be decided.
A preliminary design showcases 26 rides to be built by Vekoma Ride Manufacturing, including 7 roller-coasters.
The sketched roller-coasters resemble known Vekoma and Gerstlauer designs.
Vekoma:
Gerstlauer
Other attractions will include indoor rides and a '4D' virtual reality simulator housed in the large barn that is currently under construction.
Planning permission applications will be filed early in the new year. At first, this will focus on developing a 20-acre site.
Gateway owner, Ken Strelley, has stated that applications will be for a mix of full-scale development and general outline as the resort unfolds.
An interesting quotation from Mr Strelley in the Llanelli Star reads:
"Though we wouldn't be trying to compete with them, the site would be twice the size of Oakwood."
Although this claim has already made headlines, it is unclear how true it is.
Taking rough measurements from Google's satellite imagery, Oakwood's overall park area is 79 acres (32 hectares). From satellite imagery, we can estimate area of land devoted to Oakwood's rides to be around 47.57 acres (19.25 hectares).
The overall area of Gateway park (including caravan site, parking, etc) is around 100 acres (40.5 hectares). The announcement development site of 20 acres would constitute only a fifth of this.
So, to make Gateway twice the size of Oakwood, we must compare the total area of Gateway resort (~100 acres) with the area of rides only in Oakwood (~47.6 acres).
Until details of the full extent of Gateway's resort plans are made available, I estimate that the eventual area occupied by theme park attractions to be in the range of 30-60 acres only - very similar to Oakwood and certainly not twice as large.
And in concluding this (my sole blog post in two years), it's time to say Goodbye to 2015!
Wishing you a peaceful 2016.
TD
