An extra hour of daylight at Alton Towers?

[Sam]

Yesterday a very important yet underrated bill made it through its second reading at the House of Commons, and is well on its way to becoming law.

The Daylight Savings Bill, if passed, will mean the whole of the UK will be put permanently an hour ahead, meaning that in summer we will be GMT+1 and in winter, GMT+2. At the moment in summer we are GMT and in winter GMT+1. The simple idea is that you move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening.

Much of the momentum behind this bill has been by road safety organizations, all of whom support it as they say it will vastly reduce road deaths with an hours extra daylight driving.

The other major argument for this bill is the benefit to the UK's leisure industries, and the LighterLater campaign have argued that it will create 60,000 to 80,000 new jobs in the leisure industries and make an extra £2.5 - 3.5 billion every year.

I think the Conservative MP who gave the bill its second reading explained it best, I'll quote her:

"An extra hour of daylight is not only an extra hour for many attractions to stay open and trading, it actually extends the summer tourist season. It gives our tourist attractions the longer summers that their continental competitors take for granted. I can certainly see the enormous benefit this will bring to towns like Blackpool".

I think this is all very interesting. If this is all true, then it sounds like the UK's theme parks could benefit MASSIVELY from this change, and make a huge amount of money. Is this the mysterious 'X Factor' that German theme parks seem to have?

There are other complications of course too. It will mean towards the end of the season there would be an hours left night riding, and during Scarefest this could really hit the park (unless they lengthen opening by an hour )

What are your views on this and how it will affect Alton Towers and other theme parks? I'm not looking for a debate over the general merits of the idea, just about how it will affect Alton Towers.

[Merlin]

I do like the idea of an xtra hour of day light in the winter during the evenings for this country as a whole.

I Just wish they stop moving the clocks backwards and forwards every 6 months, this is unnecessary and messies around with my body clock. I think just stick with summertime all year round.

On the other hand, it will intefere with night time events live the scarefest and fireworks with the lighter evenings, but hopefully Alton will compensate for this by closing the park an hour later.

[DiogoJ42]

This is a stupid idea. It will not make a blind bit of difference. Shops and attractions will still be open for exactly the same times as they are now. our world works by the clock, not by the sun. So theme parks will still only be open from 9-6 (or whatever). The costs involved in staying open longer will be greater than the extra income in brings, so all that will happen is we get less dark ride time.

It's doubly pointless to me, since I hardly ever see daylight anyway, what with working in the dark! :P

Anyway, if they do anything, they should just stick to GMT all year round.

[A5H]

It's an absolutely stupid idea.
The whole world operates in the same summer and winter times.
Why would this make even the slightest bit of difference to the way everything works? For my entire life you've always known it as light nights in the summer and early dark nights in the winter, what could we possibly get out of always being 1 hour ahead...
The government need to stop coming up with **** ideas like this and concentrate on the important things for the country at the minute, absolutely rediculous.

[Anonymous]

[quote=""Sam""] Is this the mysterious 'X Factor' that German theme parks seem to have?[/quote]

No, that would be better quality, value for money and entertainment.

Wasn't it you that made a topic about the UK Parks being awful? :P Also, what Diogo said!

[furie]

The two most dangerous times of the year for pedestrians and cyclists?

The week following the change from GMT and BST and vice versa.

If they are keeping in the hour changes, then it won't make the slightest bit of difference to any form of safety. The danger is from people being tired, out synch and the changes in the road conditions. It throws drivers (and cyclists and pedestrians) for about a week and they lack the concentration really required to be safe.

So, this will do bugger all to help safety, and bugger all on opening times. If a family from Aberdeen need to leave Alton Towers at 3:30 p.m. to get home, then they will have to leave at that time no matter how much later it will be before it gets dark. So, everything falls as Diogo says into the standard time slots.

I feel a march on the capital is in order! Anyone here up for that kind of thing?

[Tom G]

I wouldn't expect this to be passed at all.

[Khanage]

I think this is great idea but not for the likes of theme parks as I don't think extra daylight during the summer would change their opening hours. I would imagine though that seaside amusement parks which are open anyway until late would benefit from the extra daylight and the extra warmth the extra hour would provide later into the evening.

This would also be great for sports. I play a lot of recreational football with friends on a Sunday after work. However in the winter we don't play as by the time 4pm comes it is already pretty dark. This would also be great for after school activities during the winter too, as well as obviously the increased safety for pedestrians and cyclists. ( I appreciate that this would do the opposite as mornings would therefore be darker meaning early morning pedestrians would be more at risk).

I think they trialled this back in the 60s if my memory serves be correctly. There is a load about it on BST wiki page.

[Dylan]

I read an artice about this in the Metro a few months ago. It was trialled in Portugal (I think)? and they have now reverted back to how it was. They found that children were very tired and un-productive in schools, as it was still dark when they were going to school in the morning, as well as adults in work. I think road accidents grew in numbers in the mornings too.
Sounds like a bad idea.
And agreed on the points above that it probably wont make any difference to the theme park industry.

[Vik]

What they trialed back in the 60's was to keep BST all year round, so there was no changing the clocks.

This proposal is to change the clocks to Central European Time. Sam has got it the wrong way round though. In winter we are on GMT, and in summer BST (British Summer Time). So in summer we will have GMT+2 & Winter will be GMT+1. The clocks will still change every March & October, but there will be a one off move a head another extra hour to bring us in line with CET.

Thought how will it effect Theme Parks. Probably very little. Maybe the likes of Pleasure Beach may benefit slightly, though I doubt it will encourage anyone to open later and close later. Just because the sun rises and falls at different times of the day doesn't really mean that opening times need to alter.

It has been shown through late night opening at Theme Parks that people start to drift away by early evening anyway. I'm not convinced that people will start out later in the day to take a trip to a Theme Park just because the sun rises an hour later. Time is Time regardless. No need for later opening and later closing.

[Sam]

I know I said it was meant to be an Alton-only related topic but I have to interject.

[quote=""furie""]If they are keeping in the hour changes, then it won't make the slightest bit of difference to any form of safety. The danger is from people being tired, out synch and the changes in the road conditions. It throws drivers (and cyclists and pedestrians) for about a week and they lack the concentration really required to be safe.[/quote]
Wow, didn't know you were a road safety expert now. You better go ring up the AA, the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, GEM, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, BRAKE and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and tell them idea they clearly have no idea about road safety. I'm sure they'll be very relieved.

To be a bit more on-topic, instead of extending theme park opening hours, I think it just makes them more flexible. I think it'd be a good thing if instead of the 10 - 5 pattern were used to, theme parks made a shift towards 11 - 6, with ERT starting at 10. Especially if they were guaranteed daylight until 6pm year round.

[Vik]

Your idea of opening later is what I suggested would be pointless to some degree. It may work for example, Pleasure Beach, who have in the past had late opening. People have often called for it to open later, and thus close later.

I doubt it would work anywhere other than a seasside resort though. Regardless of what time the sun rises or sets, you still tend to get up at the same time, and do things at the same time. For example, when clocks move forward an hour in the Summer, your working day doesn't start an hour later, or the shops open an hour later. So I am unconvinced that Theme Parks deciding to open an hour later if we were to move to CET (Which would, as a one off, require a 2 hour shift forward in March to bring us in to line), would be if any benefit.

People tend to stick to a routine. That includes the timing of things. I can't imagine someone will adjust their daily timings to fit in with changes to daylight hours. They will still want to arrive somewhere early morning and leave late evening.

[furie]

[quote=""Sam""]
Wow, didn't know you were a road safety expert now. You better go ring up the AA, the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, GEM, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, BRAKE and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and tell them idea they clearly have no idea about road safety. I'm sure they'll be very relieved.
[/quote]

Obviously I just made all of that up for fun

The change causes accidents, as at least two independent studies have shown. ROSPA studies also back up this theory, as well as their own that the clocks need to move forward.

Maybe I should write to them, as they seem to have missed any studies done (and the national accident statistics) which show that the weeks following the clocks going forward have almost as much of an increase in accident rates as the weeks following the clocks going back.

I don't dispute the changes will save lives, but they seem to have ignored, or not mentioned, the findings by others about the change from GMT to BST.

[Blaze]

I don't get this new system of time keeping. Why not just settle for GMT and be done with it? Most of the problems people have stem from having to change it twice a year.

Anyway, if the bill goes through, it could benefit the industry greatly. An extra hour of daylight will be a huge bonus. Halloween attractions like Scarefest or things like the Illuminations may be hurt a little, but on the whole, it could work wonders.

I'm with Furie in the road safety thing, it has nothing to do with the amount of light.

[Sam]

[quote=""furie""][quote=""Sam""]
Wow, didn't know you were a road safety expert now. You better go ring up the AA, the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, GEM, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, BRAKE and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and tell them idea they clearly have no idea about road safety. I'm sure they'll be very relieved.
[/quote]

Obviously I just made all of that up for fun

The change causes accidents, as at least two independent studies have shown. ROSPA studies also back up this theory, as well as their own that the clocks need to move forward.

Maybe I should write to them, as they seem to have missed any studies done (and the national accident statistics) which show that the weeks following the clocks going forward have almost as much of an increase in accident rates as the weeks following the clocks going back.

I don't dispute the changes will save lives, but they seem to have ignored, or not mentioned, the findings by others about the change from GMT to BST.[/quote]
There will be exactly the same number of time changes each year - 2. This timeshift forwards will have nothing to do with that. Therefore no more or less accidents should happen with regard to the winter/summer annual time change.

[NickT04]

So instead of trying to improve road safety through actual teaching and awareness courses, we are just changing the time

[James]

[quote=""DiogoJ42""]our world works by the clock, not by the sun. .[/quote]

Spot on there.

Changing the clocks makes no difference at all, we all still work the same times, go to school/uni/college at the same times, businesses operate the same times... you get the idea.

I've always found the clocks changing a pain, just messes with what I'm used to and then there's always to annoying job of changing the clocks and in my house, that is no fun at all. I'd rather just have them leave it as it is, the government should be focusing on more important things instead of meddling with something that is fine as it is.

Either leave the times as they are, or just have us stick to GMT all year round.

[fredward]

This maybe me just being selfish but I'd prefere GMT -1, means 1 hour extra time to ride nemesis in the dark at Halloween...

[Ritadz]

[quote=""fredward""]This maybe me just being selfish but I'd prefere GMT -1, means 1 hour extra time to ride nemesis in the dark at Halloween...[/quote]

Seconded

[Vik]

[quote=""Ritadz""][quote=""fredward""]This maybe me just being selfish but I'd prefere GMT -1, means 1 hour extra time to ride nemesis in the dark at Halloween...[/quote]

Seconded[/quote]


Can we be a bit more constructive than simply posting one word responses. Would the Thanks button not of been a better option if you have nothing to add to the discussion, but agree with what was being said?