I have to confess to passing the Archaeolink Prehistory Park, an Aberdeenshire family attraction where visitors were invited to Travel 10,000 years in one day from the Mesolithic to a Roman Marching Camp. Apart from not being mad keen – but still interested – in such far back history, time was the real problem, as I was always en route to places further north.
Iron age round house at Archeolink by London looks, on Flickr
The centre is now closed, and looks likely to stay that way unless financial backers are found to subsidise the attraction:
BBC News – Aberdeenshire tourist attraction Archaeolink to close
Archaeolink trustees in last-ditch attempt to reopen prehistory park – Press & Journal
Last-ditch bid to save Archaeolink – Evening Express
Sadly, I always find myself stuck between the proverbial Rock and a Hard Place when I read these stories. On the one hand, I believe we need to have such facilities in order to make the subjects they cover interesting, and to provide employment and education. On the other, I can’t see how they can justify their existence if they are not viable, and pay for themselves by bringing sufficient numbers through their doors.
Archeolink opened in 1997 (in a ceremony with Time Team’s Tony Robinson centre stage), and has been receiving a subsidy of £135,000 per annum from Aberdeenshire Council (for the past five years), and according to the media reports posted a loss of £130,000 for the period 2009-10, accompanied by falling visitor numbers, with 10,500 being reported for the same period – no indication was given of earlier numbers. However, it did state that each visitor was subsidised to the extent of £13 by the council, and a single adult ticket cost £6.10.
It seems it did not go down too well with the locals though, who branded it a “white elephant” from the start, and it failed to attract the expected numbers of visitors.
I’m not surprised, reading on, we learn that Audit Scotland once warned the local authority that it would have to repay a £2 million grant which had been received from the European Regional Development Fund if the trust which then ran the place was disbanded before June 2007. At the time, Press and Journal was told that the council “couldn’t afford to close it down”.
I suspect the problem is that it was built too far away from a suitable pool of visitors, and once everyone who could visit it had seen it a few times, they got bored, and people from further away would only make the trip once, so that stream of repeat business was never a reality. In all likelihood, potential visitor numbers were ‘massaged’ at an early stage, in order to endure the grant referred to earlier was won. Fine if the feet fall through the door, but in the harsh reality of daylight, no amount of visitor number projections will materialise if the distances are too far, and entrance charges too high – even if fair and subsidised. It’s all very well talking something up, but if it fails to deliver, it will ultimately fail as no-one will pour money into a bottomless hole forever. According to the local authority, it has assets worth £1.7 million as of 2010.
A petition was raised to appeal for support to keep the attraction open:
Save Archaeolink Petition, Aberdeenshire Scotland
Update
On April 1, 2011, there was news that the feature could be saved, as the trust which runs it said it would find the money to pay staff from its own funds, and that there was an as yet unnamed party interested in the park.
BBC News – Archaeolink Prehistory Park could be saved
Update
No joy for this park, as it is to finally be wound up.
Archaeolink Prehistory Park in Oyne opened in 1997 but was closed in March.
Negotiations to keep it open have failed to secure its future, and the trust which runs the project said this means the property will be officially handed back to Aberdeenshire Council
BBC News – Oyne’s Archaeolink Prehistory Park to be wound up
Secret Scotland 