page_title: Barry Island Pleasure Park
section_title: Changes at the Pleasure Park
hierarchical_section_title: Barry Island Pleasure Park / History / Changes at the Pleasure Park
caption_attribution_description: Logflume
context_page_description: Barry Island Pleasure Park is an amusement park situated on the coast at Barry Island in the Vale of Glamorgan, about 10 mi south west of the capital city Cardiff, Wales. The park opened annually at weekends from Easter onwards and daily during the school summer holidays, until the first weekend in September.
  Barry Island contains shops, bars and restaurants. The Pleasure Park was once famous for its Scenic Railway which dominated half of the site in the mid-20th century, but was partially destroyed in a gale in 1973 before being dismantled. Many of the scenic railway's beams were used in the building of the Log Flume ride, which was one of the park's most popular attractions.
  The Pleasure Park has over thirty attractions and rides. However lack of investment in the park resulted in the majority of these being removed, notably the Viper rollercoaster and the Log Flume. Park entrance is free of charge.
  Several Amusement arcades are located around the pleasure park.
  Barry Island Pleasure Park is part owned by Ian Rogers, who ran Welsh discount chain Hypervalue before it ran into financial difficulties.
context_section_description: In 1950, an ailing Pat Collins had handed over control of the park to his younger brother, John, who took over and ran the fairground until 1966, when it was passed on to John's two young sons, also named in the family tradition John and Pat. That year the Butlins holiday camp opened and provided the park with more regular customers than it had ever had before. With the increased income generated by Butlins campers the Collins brothers purchased the freehold rights to the Pleasure Park in 1969.
  Apart from the years immediately after the park opened, the busiest and most profitable period were the ten years spanning the opening of Butlins in 1966 and the mid-1970s when foreign package holidays started to grow. Apart from the Scenic Railway, the Waltzer, several carousels and most of the side stalls that were owned and operated by the Collins brothers the majority of the other major rides in the park were operated by another fairground dynasty family (since the mid-19th century), the Summers. George Summers was a major employer between the late 1950s and his death in the early 1970s when control of the firm was handed to George's sons Robert and George Jr. Other rides were operated by John Corrigan from the historical showground family.
  The Summers family ran the Big Wheel, Dive Bomber, Moon Rocket, Revolving Jets and Tipping Paratrooper rides along with the Mirror Maze, two One Arm Bandit Arcades and several "Prize every time"
  The Collins brothers went their separate ways during the early 1980s, and Pat took the reins himself. Due to a later bankruptcy the park then changed hands, and bought by Ken Rogers, the millionaire owner of the Hypervalue Group, a chain of twelve "£1 an item" budget stores in South Wales. Rogers had been attempting to buy the pleasure park for several years, mainly because his Hypervalue brand had been born twenty five years earlier in the form of a tiny market stall on a rental site near the main entrance to the Barry Pleasure Park.
caption: Logflume at Barry Island, partially constructed with the timbers originally from the historic scenic railway
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