Alton Towers Almanac

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Budgets, future rides and ERT

Some new information has come to light about the future of the park.

First of all, it's rumoured that the park's budget for capital investment in the next 5 years has been set by DIC - the amount being £30,000,000.

The money would be allocated for things such as new rides, new shops, refurbishment of rides/areas/shops, and so on.

Now bear in mind that the figure is not confirmed by any means, so the following is only speculation.

Bearing in mind that a new roller coaster can cost anywhere between £3.5m (for Spinball Whizzer) and £12m (for Air), this would seem to suggest that we may well get at least one new coaster in the next 5 years.

We've heard that the park are in very tentative talks with Mack Rides about getting a water coaster. Since it's very early days, this could easily not happen, so don't get your hopes up just yet. Mack have been working with the park again recently, modifying the water channel of Toyland Tours to allow for the offload platform of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Ride.

In other news, construction on the Peugeot Driving School seems to have already started. The shrubs around the Vintage Cars area have been removed, presumably to allow the Hex wheelchair access to be re-routed, as it's currently where the Driving School is due to go.

And finally, ERT looks to be a little different this year. For the past few seasons it's always been just Nemesis and Air available. Now, it seems the rides will be rotated during the season - we've heard it'll be Nemesis and Air for the first 12 weeks, then Oblivion and Spinball Whizzer for the next 12, and finally Rita and Corkscrew during the final 12. This would give guests a bit of variety at least, though which rides are available and for how long is subject to change.