Oakwood theme park is set to spend £3m on a new rollercoaster ride aimed at widening its appeal to younger people.
The steel-framed white knuckle ride - set to open for the 2005 season - is expected to take 20,000 visitors from competitors such as Alton Towers. Park bosses said they hoped the new attraction would help pull in people living beyond the M4 corridor.
The plan comes as the £60m Bluestone holiday village scheme has been reaffirmed by Pembrokeshire council.
Oakwood, near Narberth in Pembrokeshire, is predicting a turnover of £6.5m and 400,000 visitors in the coming summer season.
But unlike the site's other rollercoaster, Megafobia, the planned new ride would be made of steel rather than wood.
Steel allows a more "uniform" riding experience as it does not flex in the way wood does, but the park has said its designers would ensure the new ride will have a high "thrill factor".
A spokeswoman for the park said the addition would firm up the venue's appeal to all ages groups while keepings its focus as a family-orientated attraction.
She said the park wanted to have a white-knuckle ride which would encourage people living more then two hours' drive away to head for Oakwood for the day rather than make an equally long journey to its English competitors.
She said: "We think it will break into a new market - people who live further from the M4, but we want to keep our family feel.
Water ride
"We don't want to market a white knuckle ride really hard and end up with a hardcore teenage market as we find that produces the wrong atmosphere."
The last addition to Oakwood's list of white-knuckle attractions was the water ride, Hydro.
The park is close to the planned controversial Bluestone project to build a 500-acre leisure and sports village, complete with 340 log cabins and a snow dome.
The holiday village scheme, which is not related to Oakwood, was ratified by Pembrokeshire National Park Authority last week.
(c) The BBC
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, 05-Apr-04, 12:28 Uhr, (2)
