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A FUNFAIR FOR DERRY

Story added by John&Antoinette, 16 February 2009

Hello,

I am writing to suggest that Derry should play to one of its greatest strengths when trying to attract investment and finance. Tourism is one of these areas which can generate growth and employment here and a lot is indeed being done already. I think that Derry should try though to build something unique that will guaranteed draw in visitors and that is to build an amusement park! I am envisaging something in size comparable to Alton Towers in England. Nowhere in Ireland has such a facility and thus national as well as international tourists would be served by it. I have lived for about 15 years in Sweden and have been many times to places like Tivoli in Copenhagen, Liseberg in Gothenburg and Gröna Lund in Stockholm. These parks are ideal for a day out and once a day pass has been purchased you can go on as many rides as you wish (instead of the norm here where exorbitant amounts are generally taken for individual rides). These funfairs also have restaurants in the same locality and some even have swimming pools. I would have thought that the riverside location of Fort George would have been ideal for the amusement park when rides could even have been built out over the water (as is the case in Gröna Lund). From speaking to Ilex however it seems that too much money has already been ploughed into planning for an office block/hotel style development that these plans cannot now be changed.

Another site could probably be found, perhaps further along the riverfront towards the Foyle bridge. An advantage of this idea is that it would entirely be privately financed instead of having to wait for public money (as seems to be the case for the majority of development schemes in Derry). There is private money out there, companies will be persuaded to invest if they can see the benefits and potential returns on their money. The spinoff from the funfair would greatly benefit the city, in particular the hospitality industry - hotels and restaurants.

It would be interesting to see if there is interest from private investors/companies for this - at least it would give Derry something which no other city in Ireland as yet does in fact have!

Comments (1)

An interesting notion, but at the moment, Derry would have nothing approaching the infrastructure to support such a venture. The road and rail system is inadequate at best. However, I do have some ideas along similar lines, which if I can pull it off, and can get enough support, may become a very real cash cow for this town.

Watch this space...


Mark Kelly 17 February 2009

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