The owner of a York attraction hopes to make a strong comeback with plans to double in size - with a mini zoo, fairground and golf.
The Web Adventure Park in Wigginton Road, is reopening for weekends from Saturday and has teamed up with York events company, Cynosure, to offer rides such as dodgems, a fun house and the Waltzer alongside the sand and water play areas, animal enclosure, adventure park and ride-on tractors.
The indoor soft play centre remains shut due to restrictions but work is under way to double the play area by creating a new higher level, ahead of the relaunch.
Owner Janice Dunphy said they were using up the last of an RDPE grant for the project which started in 2018.
“The new area is an interactive obstacle course focusing on children competing against themselves and others with some great challenges. This was planned in 2017/2018 and is only happening due to the grant funding."
Work underway in the top field to create a larger animal enclosure.
Outside, a larger animal enclosure is being created on a four-acre field, making space for other features such as miniature golf, fair rides and events.
“We are calling it the Field of Dreams,” said Janice, adding that there would be bigger paddocks and better housing and enrichment.
“We are applying for a zoo licence. The dream will be alpacas, wallabies, meerkats and marmosets.
"We are like a Noah’s ark; at present we have two ponies, two goats, two sheep, two pigs, two chipmunks, two rabbits, guinea pigs, and chickens. We need more furry friends.”
She added: "We are using some of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan we borrowed. This is a risk but we feel we need to be a big outside area with more activities and reasons to visit when the sun shines.
"We need to protect the business from another pandemic, when the inside is the first to close and the last thing to open. I hope it will never happen again. I don’t want to even think about it.
"We are also coming up with a new way to enter the park, to allow our customer a lovely walk to the back of the present area, making it a nicer start to the visit.
"All this will be open for the start of the summer holidays.
"I am so optimistic we will be a stronger offering after the worst year ever. We feel so grateful to still have a business and we won't dwell on the past; it is time to become something even better than we ever dreamed about.
"Thanks to our partnership with Cynosure we will have the offering that we think will become one of the most exciting attractions in 2021 - hopefully."
She added: "The changes will make the park twice as big outside and twice as much play inside. The park will be a true 'adventure park' and the team can’t wait to share the plans.
“But for now we hope to see as many of our lovely customers as possible to help is recover from the past 13 months- we will be operating two sessions with restricted numbers so it will be super safe, with amazing food and beverages from artisan coffee to beer on draft! We hope we can open to lots of smiles and see people leave happy!”
Pre booking for the Web's weekend openings is essential to allow speed of entry and track and trace. It will be open for two four-hour sessions from 9.30am and 2pm.
Entry prices are £2 for people under 0.9m in height, or £8 for adults and anyone over 0.9m.
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