For over 100 years thrill seekers have travelled across the country to Victorian seaside towns or pleasure gardens to woop and yell at fair grounds. Rollercoasters, games, carousels and candy floss are just a few of things that automatically come to mind when thinking about theme parks.

However Brits are seemingly turning their backs to old fashioned ways of having fun. In recent years a flurry of some of the UK’s best loved theme parks have been forced to close generating the question about whether the theme park industry is dying. This is generating the question about whether some of our beloved attractions are at risk of going extinct.

The UK theme park sector is facing a challenging time with some parks struggling with rising costs and declining visitor numbers as some businesses struggle to compete with more established attractions meaning some theme parks have been forced to close.

Earlier this year, after 40 years in operation Oakwood Theme Park, the largest theme park in Wales, announced earlier this year it is to close.

The iconic park’s closure came amid a backdrop of increasingly tumultuous news from around the industry.

Also this year, Leisure Island Fun Park on Canvey Island, Essex, closed its gates after two decades of operation, marking the end of an era.

During the pandemic Wicksteed Park, one of the UK's oldest theme parks narrowly avoided collapse after falling into administration with the loss of 115 jobs.

After the pandemic, the park in Kettering received funding from the National Lottery and Cultural Recovery to get it on the right track again.

The Grade II listed park which boasts 25 rides is not immune from feeling the pressures of the industry with the business pointing to the cost of living as the main reason.

Kelly Richardson, managing director at Wicksteed Park, told The Times: “We’ve struggled with hitting anything like the same number of paying visitors as pre-pandemic.

“If people are making a difficult choice between food and heat, what drops off first is your spending money for days out.”

She adds: "People don’t seem to be planning family days out as much as they used to”.

What makes the park unique is that it has been free to everyone since it first opened in 1921.

However, only approximately 200,000 visitors out of the 800,000 annual visitors paying money the park may be forced to start charging an entrance fee to meet the £1.4 million annual upkeep costs.

Wicksteed is much more than a theme park with it also having pretty gardens, walking trails, a nature reserve and a pavilion. However, it has been forced to temporarily close its Wicky Bear Show due to the cost of entertainment staff.

Earlier this week, Fantasy Island in Skegness announced it would be reducing to a five-day week in the off-season and is closing its doors earlier each day to save costs whilst The Wave in Bristol announced its sudden closure.