Torbay tourism facing pressures

Bay MP says tourist trade needs stability and help

Tourist businesses on the English Riviera are facing massive financial pressures as a result of the government’s financial strategy.

Now they are calling on MPs to do more to help the beleaguered local holiday trade.

Torbay’s Liberal Democrat MP Steve Darling heard first-hand about the pressures during a visit to the Splashdown Quaywest water park at Goodrington – the biggest attraction of its kind in the country.

Marketing director Jackie Richmond told him that soaring energy bills coupled with factors such as the increase in employers’ National Insurance payments and an increase in the minimum wage were holding businesses back.

Last August alone a gas bill for the business which had been £15,000 had soared to £45,000.

Splashdown Quaywest is owned by a small family firm – Lemur Attractions – which has a smaller water park and an indoor play area for children in Dorset. The Goodrington site enjoyed record visitor numbers during last year’s hot summer.

The company has planning permission to extend at Quaywest with more slides, an indoor play centre and a climbing wall, but Ms Richmond said financial factors were holding the plans back.

“They have had a big impact on us,” she said. “Any profit that we would otherwise re-invest into the water park has been denuded, and now we have to keep covering our costs all the time, which leaves very little left for us to re-invest into the park.”

She said the financial pressures on local tourist and hospitality businesses were putting Torbay’s drive towards becoming the country’s top holiday destination in jeopardy. And, she said, there was a danger that some tourism businesses would just fold under the pressure.

“We are not alone in this,” she said. “Every single hospitality business is under the same pressures.

“I think some intentions have been good, but I think consequences have not been fully considered. Government policy is made for people that have businesses operating in an office from nine to five, and most of the businesses that operate in coastal areas like this do not fit that template.

“A one-size-fits-all idea is just not sustainable.”

Mr Darling said many tourism businesses in the bay were currently in ‘survival mode’.

“They’re treading water and they’re fearful about what’s coming over the horizon,” he said. “The government needs to make sure that there is stability, and that the environment for businesses is made more friendly.

“We need to keep on driving that agenda.”

Splashdown Quaywest will open for the 2026 season at the beginning of May, and its owners have plans for new attractions and events to keep people coming through the doors.

But, said Ms Richmond: “It just gets harder and harder, and our ability to re-invest is curtailed when there is a lot of uncertainty as well as additional cost.

“And we’re now thinking, what’s the next thing that’s going to come up and bite us?”