Paulton's Park expected to be allowed to keep controversial rides (From This is Hampshire)

Paulton's Park expected to be allowed to keep controversial rides

4:46pm Wednesday 14th October 2009 in

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HAMPSHIRE theme park is expected to be able to keep two multi-million-pound rides that were built without the correct permission.

Members of the New Forest National Park Authority (NPA) are being recommended to approve a belated application submitted by Paulton’s Park, near Ower.

Its bid to retain the Cobra and Edge rides has resulted in 32 letters of protest and one further letter signed by 57 people.

Objectors say the scheme should be thrown out on the grounds that vehicles going in and out of the park, which attracts more than 400,000 visitors a year, are generating too much noise, congestion and pollution.

They also cite the “negative impact”

on the character of the New Forest and the loss of tranquillity in the countryside surrounding the attraction.

The district council has also objected, claiming the screams of people using the white-knuckle rides are annoying the occupants of nearby Home Farm.

However, a report to next week’s meeting of the NPA’s planning committee says the rides do not impinge on the New Forest and are appropriate to the site’s use as a leisure park.

It adds: “The visual impact of the rides from Home Farm and elsewhere is not considered to be sufficiently intrusive to warrant a refusal.”

Dozens of objectors attended a meeting of Copythorne Parish Council after Paulton’s Park submitted its application in the summer.

Many of the protesters are planning to attend the NPA meeting in a lastditch attempt to prevent the scheme being approved.

Paulton’s Park is refusing to make any comment ahead of the debate.

In a letter to the NPA managers say planning permission was not sought because they believed the site was covered by permitted development rights.