W.S.M Water Adventure Park & Sand Sculptures

Weston Water Adventure Park is on the Knightstone end of Weston sea front. It used to be free, then last summer it was £1 per child in the school holidays. It has now increased to £1.50 per child all summer long. To be honest I don't mind its a nice park & worth paying to get in. It has 2 areas of parks one aimed at smaller children and a castle area designed for older kids. Joseph (4.5) & Daniel (3) enjoy both areas. But they really love the splash park, we usually take the boys wet suits as it is cold & this means they can stay in a little longer! We also find that they engage more & have fun if we take a small bucket or scoop for them to collect & pour water with.

I was really disappointed that we were refused entry with our cool bag, we have always taken a picnic in previous years, it makes a nice family day out & means that we can then afford to buy the boys an ice cream after lunch. So we turned around & had our picnic on the beach, which would have been nice if it was a little less windy that day!. To be honest we were so disappointed that had we not have promised the boys that we were going we would have not bothered going in. 

After lunch we returned the outlawed picnic bag to the car & paid our money & entered the park, only to discover that about 90% of the family's in the park had managed to smuggle there picnic past the picnic police! 

While there I took a look at the councils food provider 'the kiosk' the name just about says it all,other than the usual ice creams & snacks all I could see were sausage rolls, hot dogs & one type of jacket potato & by the look of the place I'm not sure if i could have trusted that they were going to be good quality enough to be worth paying for. I feel if the council are banning picnics then they need to provide a decent cafe serving a large range of healthy foods.

I have made our complaint to Weston Town Council & I will add there response to the bottom of my post. 

After lots of fun at the park we walked along the sea front to the Weston Sand Sculpture Festival. None of us had been before so we didn't know what to expect, but we all had a nice time. At the beginning there are a series of displays showing how they make a sand sculpture, then you move on to the big sculptures made by a lots of talented artists. The sculptures are open daily until the end of September.

The theme for 2013 is Hollywood so there were lots of familiar faces from the movies. The boys favourite was Toy Story! At the end they have a small cafe so Daddy & I enjoyed a hot drink while the boys played in the sand pit. It's worth a visit but will only take an hour so combined with a trip somewhere else in Weston, like the beach, pier or water park makes a nice day out.

As you can see the reason I'm not in many pics is that Daddy isn't very good at taking them!

x Jo x

P.s. Don't forget to enter the competition to win 2 of  my bandana bibs HERE


Weston Town Councils reply:

Dear Jo,

 

Thanks for the information re the Park which I will pass on to our Head Groundsman. I also appreciate your very fair comment about the £1.50 charge, we do think it is good value for money compared to most alternative attractions and helps fund the attendants who look after the Park, pick litter etc. The Water Park was paid for and is subsidised by Weston council tax payers so we do feel users should make some contribution towards the cost of running the Water Park at peak times.

 

Car parks are run by North Somerset Council and charges are set by them.  The Town Council has lobbied North Somerset about the cost of car parking in the town which (unlike the Water park which is subsidised overall) does net North Somerset a significant profit. If you don’t mind a short walk might I suggest the Madiera Road Car Park at the North end of the sea front by Prince Consort Gardens, which is £1.50 for up to 4 hours or £3 all day.

 

As regards the picnic ban, this was brought in by a previous set of Councillors in 2010, before the 2011 elections at which the current Town Council were elected. There were two reasons for this which I will pass on. Firstly because of litter being brought in, including glass bottles which could be a danger to little bare feet. Secondly because the Council was providing a Kiosk, though a concessionaire, which does help towards funding of the Park and the Council needed this to be viable.

 

We have decided not to aggressively enforce the picnic ban but do have a word with anyone obviously bringing in a picnic. I would add as a practical solution that the Park is open all day and having paid for admission, people are free to leave and return throughout the same day without paying again. So you do have the option of leaving, sitting on the beach or sea front for your picnic, and then returning. Having said that I admit the picnic ban has been controversial. I understand that having to purchase lunch does add to the costs of a visit and remember when my Children were young we almost always packed sandwiches for a family trip. I cannot promise what they would decide but it is possible that the current Council could be persuaded to take a different view. There is a meeting of the Community Services Committee on 1^st July which might, if it had been asked to by a member of the public, review the ban. Would you like me to let councillors know about your complaint?

 

Regards,

 

Malcolm

 

Malcolm L Nicholson LLB DMS AILCM