FLAMINGO LAND is one of the UK's top magnets for tourists, figures revealed today.

The theme park and zoo, at Kirby Misperton, near Malton, had the fifth highest number of visitors in the country in 2002.

With 1,322,000 people passing through its gates last year, the attraction's visitor numbers had increased by 5.4 per cent from 2001.

The statistics, released by the VisitBritain organisation, show that Flamingo Land was the top paid-for attraction in the north.

It was beaten by London attractions including the Millennium Wheel and the Tower of London, the Eden Project in Cornwall and Legoland in Windsor.

The only other Yorkshire attraction to make the top 20 was The Deep in Hull. Despite only opening last year, The Deep received 750,000 visitors.

York Minster, which is introducing entry charges on Saturday, did not make it into the top 20 attractions.

Overall, UK attractions enjoyed an eight per cent increase in visitors last year compared with 2001.

The Queen's Golden Jubilee boosted the number of people visiting attractions connected with the Royal Family, with both Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey receiving seven per cent more visitors than the previous year.

Farm visits, severely hit by the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, rose 46 per cent last year, while wildlife attractions, country parks and gardens all enjoyed healthy increases of more than 11 per cent.

Updated: 10:50 Monday, July 28, 2003