Yorkshire Wildlife Park Proposed African Wildlife Park at Doncaster

I have just come across an article in the South Yorkshire local press about a proposal to open a new African-themed wildlife park on the outskirts of Doncaster. The site is currently Brockholes Farm, a visitor attraction featuring a working farm, an equestrian centre and a small zoo. From their website I've gleaned that they have guanacos, ostriches, raccoons, grivet monkeys and owls.

The farm has recently been bought by a couple who worked at Woburn Safari Park who want to develop the site into a "major tourist attraction" exhibiting savannah animals, chimps and monkeys. The proposals are currently at the planning stage with a view to opening the new park "some time in 2009" (ambitious if you ask me).

Here's the article in full: African wildlife park bid - The Star

Here's the Brockholes Farm website: Brockholes Farm - Doncaster - Riding Centre

And here's what the site looks like: brockholes farm - Google Maps

I think this could work. I've always thought that Yorkshire/Humberside and the North East of England are poorly served by wildlife attractions and there is an obvious gap to fill. The only close competitor would be Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire. What kind of experience the Williams have from Woburn I don't know, but it sounds as though they are thinking along the right lines.

 

Couldn't agree more with you Chris, the north east is very poorly served, the many times i have visited Edinburgh zoo after a Scottish accent, it is ALWAYS a geordie accent you hear in the crowd, there must be 1000's that make the trip north to their "nearest" zoo.

 

This is brilliant news and I hope they provide the region with a good quality wildlife park.
There has been and still is massive investment in the Doncaster area with the new football stadium, the Race Course, shopping centres and of course the brand new Robin Hood airport, which is about 3miles from the Brockholes site. This kind of attraction would certainly draw more people into the area.
You can see animals in the area at various small collections or extended farm parks - such as Brockholes - but for a proper "zoo" experience it's either FlamingoLand or Twycross, both about 90mins away.

 

Hope the doncaster one does well if it gets off the ground. When the north east had a park on its door step (Lambton Lion Park), it only did well for a couple of years. I think that zoos in the north east can't be year round attractions because of the weather. Lambton lion park seemed to suffer from a low number of repeat visitors in subsequent years and also keeping huge numbers of animals whose diets were expensive to maintain.

 

Tell me about it! There's next to nothing in this area, and if this was built it'd be by far the closest big zoo to me. I hope it goes ahead, and I hope it's good! It'd also be nice if it wasn't restricted to African animals, but I guess all that's in the pipeline. I think Doncaster council should've put money into building attraction like this along time ago, rather than wasting it on the 'Earth Centre' which was a huge disappointment.

 

It's strange that your area is virtually a zoo/wildlife park 'desert' as almost every other region of the Uk is served by several animal collections, large or small, often both.

 

Because zoos still feature in my line of work, I have a good perspective on animal-based collections in the UK. There are large swaths of the country where there are no zoos (or farm parks, aquaria etc). The North East is largely devoid of them as are, for example, areas between the North West and Scotland, up the spine of Wales, between Manchester & Birmingham.
I can only point the finger at tourism hotspots. There are more than enough collections in Norfolk, South East Devon, South coast, Greater London and Merseyside because that is where people go. I have seen parks where they struggle to survive and those that have gone under, and you only have to ask the question - why did they build it there? Sometimes it is from competition that has come in later or changes to the demographics or road systems.

I say good luck to the couple building this park in Doncaster. It will be a tough venture to pull off, and I'm glad I'm not putting my money behind it.

 

The only thing you can hope about Doncaster, is that if this zoo was good enough/ big enough, to be an attraction in it's own right, at least it is a fairly central location, and close to other large towns (i.e. not too far from somewhere like sheffield).

I'm surprised no one has set up a large zoo within range of the Yorkshire Dales and Yorkshire moors, where there is a large catchment of tourists, and it is also close enough to cities like Middlesborough to get locals visiting too.

 

Surely Flamingo Park fills that niche? Its not a quality zoo but is quite a sizeable collection.

 

I was referring largely to the more populated and accessible areas of UK- I wouldn't expect to see any zoos in rural Wales, Scotland etc. Its odd East Anglia now has about six- Cromer, Thrigby, Banham, Suffolk, Colchester & Linton( and Hamerton) Some years ago I saw a tourist census which listed East Anglia's biggest visitor attraction as.... Whipsnade!! How they reached this conclusion I don't know- Bedfordshire isn't East Anglia in my opinion but that is how it was rated.

Most populated areas have a large zoo or Safari Park somewhere within reach- sometimes more than one;Whipsnade and Woburn are extremely close while Kent has the two Aspinall Parks - Port Lympne in particular I think struggles rather as there are no major urban areas nearby and 'sister' zoo Howletts has almost the same animals but is much more visitor-friendly.

 

I have always been amazed at the number of collections (and good ones at that) based in East Anglia. You have also forgotten Pensthorpe, which has an amazing bird collection.

Howletts does well because it is easily accessible from Canterbury, itself a major tourist destination. Port Lympne is between Ashford and Dover, no man's land. Nice part of the country to live (as long as you don't live in either Ashford or Dover) but no reason to visit.

 

Well that's true, but I think there'd be room for another more serious collection a bit further north. The only one in that area, is the Otter Sanctuary.

 

And Washington Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust - which isn't really a zoo.

Alan

 

Yes, I forgot Pensthorpe, though its really a specialist waterfowl/bird collection. There was also the Norfolk Wildlife Park- now a farm park, Mole Hale in Essex- if that is still going, and formerly Kilverstone at Thetford.

Re Howletts/Port Lympne- I think if Port Lympne was a typical commercial collection it would have closed a long time ago. It is very poorly situated as far as having a large visitor base is concerned.

 

I think the thought crossed young Aspinall's mind to actually shut the Howlett's site and concentrate his efforts on Port Lympne... maybe if the gate receipts had been reversed than maybe this might have occurred.

 

I heard it the other way around, that he was considering selling off Port Lympne. Although Port Lympne has far more space, Howletts is the family home.. Anyway, it didn't happen. Instead they've tried to commercialise Port Lympne with the 'Africa Experience' a hotel, wedding party venues, music festivals etc. I don't know how well all this is working.

Although I enjoy visiting Port Lympne I've never thought it a visitor -friendly site, with the hillside location and the long hikes between the various animal exhibits scattered around. Whereas Howletts is comfortable to stroll around but for the Aspinalls' 'vision', its just not big enough in area..

 

The music festival wasn't exactly a roaring success, by all accounts:

Zoo8 organisers vow to be back, bigger and better

 

Unfortunately I haven't really visited Port Lympne (been there three times but not really to look around) so I cannot compare the two. But from what I know I would agree that there is much more space at Port Lympne for Aspinall to 'play' around with. Unfortunately the Howletts exhibits while good for breeding small cats and primates in, have not been designed with the public in mind, and can be difficult to view or photo species.

 

Port Lympne can be a real slog, even for a fairly fit walker(as I like to count myself-)and especially on a hot day... or you can waste time waiting for one of the 'safari bus' tractors to arrive and then travel with familes & excited yelling kids on to the next location. Many of the animal enclosures are well away from the paths so animals like rhinos are often quite a long distance away.

Its a good collection though very similar to Howletts. Howletts is flat, shady, much smaller(50 acres?) and far easier to stroll around and all of the animal enclosures are closer together and to the visitors as well.

 

Going back to Doncaster. Don't forget this isn't a new animal attraction, it's potentially just a change in the species displayed. Brockholes must have had enough customers/visitors in the past to keep them going, in an area with several similar attractions to be fair (farm park with a few exotics.)