Correct me if I am wrong but is this a lot more than what is ususally done for a new ride at Thorpe? I know that consultations will always be carried out but this seem a lot more public than normal. I do not recall this much for Swarm or Saw but I never paid that much attention back then.
This is different to what's been done before, yes.
In the past, the park used to submit a Mid Term Development Plan (MTDP) to the local council. This would be valid for a 6 year period, and would outline, amongst other things:
-Possible locations for new rides
-The amount of floorspace they expected to increase by
-Maximum height and lengths for coasters they were considering building
-Other possible plans (infrastructure works, etc)
When approved, this made it easier for the park to get approval when building things (they could apply for rides, etc under "reserved matters", which roughly meant the park were saying "You've said we can build something within these guidelines, here's exactly what we want to build").
When an MTDP was submitted, it was open to scrutiny by the council and locals. They could give feedback like with any other planning application that is submitted. And again, when ride plans are submitted, they can also give feedback on the exact details, but (I believe) can't argue against anything that is as described by the (by then) approved MTDP.
An example of this would be Swarm. In the MTDP (submitted in 2010), the park stated that they were thinking of building a ride in the location which would not exceed 50m nor be longer than 850m. When the park submitted plans for the ride (in 2011), it fit these restrictions, so there was no discussion to be had about the actual approval of the ride. However, one thing in the precise plans was that they wanted some of the plane theming in the surrounding lake. Local authorities decided against this, so that had to be changed.
Anyway, there currently is no MTDP. In other words, the park have not sent anything to the council outlining what they want to do over a 5-6 year period. The last one they submitted was in 2010, and that outlined up to 2016. This means if they park want to build anything, they have to submit a full planning application, rather than one under reserved matters.
This in itself is not an issue. The park have done this before with attractions. The last notable one was Ghost Train (since it was outlined in the MTDP at the time), but I think they also did it with Colossus and Inferno too. So the park could do this again.
Would this indicate that there will be a wider impact to the areas surrounding the park I.e. height/track visiable from the park?
Possibly.
As I say, the park could drop in an application tomorrow for a roller coaster if they wanted to. And if it was something a similar scale to, say, Colossus/Saw/Inferno, I see no reason why the council or locals would object to it frankly.
At the same time, it's been a long time since the park have constructed a major addition. Really we are going back 10 years (as Ghost Train was not a major construction job in the same vein as a coaster is). So it could simply be a case that the park are holding these consultations out of courtesy, as opposed to anything else. It could also be something that the the council / a planning company the park work with have requested whilst the park have been in communication with them.
But another reason for such a consultation in such a way is because it's "different". It could be significantly bigger or louder as a ride when it's built. But it could be something else, like maybe the construction process might have affect local's lives (louder than usually, certain roads being affected, etc). It could be something else.
I do think that there's something to this logic though, especially given the rumours going round.
Before ending this post, I want to mention one thing: Stealth. Stealth was mentioned in the MTDP at the time, and the application was submitted under reserved matters. Obviously, this is going back a long time ago, and things were different. Immediate local residents were sent out letters about the application. It was mentioned in the local newspaper. Etc etc. People still complained:
152 likes, 3 comments - thorpeparknostalgia on September 11, 2021: "August 2004 - local opposition to the planning process for Stealth.".
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Whilst this didn't cause an issue (since letters had been sent out and everything done properly with regards to those locals), I do remember that there were some issues, with letters being sent to addresses that don't exist, or places which were uninhabitable. Whoops.
That was one of a very few rare circumstance when there's been any sort of friction between the park and locals frankly. The park do have a good enough relationship with those who live immediately nearby to be honest, which is a good thing, and should be good news for this project.
tl;dr - This isn't the norm, and yes this gives some level of optimism we might see something big. But it doesn't 100% mean that yet.
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