Oakwood theme park in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, has announced its immediate closure

Wicksteed Park in Kettering, Northamptonshire, has warned it was under threat of closure

Wet n Wild in North Shields was home to the country’s biggest water slide but shut in 2020

Philip Miller, owner of Adventure Island in Southend-on-Sea, is pictured with his daughter Hannah Miller who has worked with him since she was 12 years old. He has warned Labour’s Budget tax raid will see him lose £600,000 in turnover and employ 200 fewer staff this year

Adventure Island is located on Southend seafront with more than 40 rides and attractions

In Southend, Mr Miller said the problems he is facing are being witnessed across the UK’s theme park industry, based on conversations he has had with other owners.

He is having to cut opening hours, with selected rides opening later or closing earlier to save on staffing costs – while some workers are leaving and not being replaced.

Many of those employed at Adventure Island especially in the summer are college students on holidays, but there will be 200 fewer seasonal staff taken on this year.

Now, there is an uncertain outlook for the theme park, which welcomes 900,000 visitors a year and began life more than a century ago as the ‘Sunken Garden’ in 1918.

Mr Miller told MailOnline that changes revealed in last October’s Budget will be ‘affecting operations in various ways’, adding: ‘Initially we’ve cut opening hours a bit.

‘Last year, under the previous chancellor, we closed on weekdays in June for the first time. That was the effect of the previous Budget, not this one.’

He continued: ‘What it means is we’ll open the rides a bit later, close a bit earlier, save staff that way. We’re going to cut numbers.

‘As people are leaving we’re not replacing them. So far there’s nine gone and we haven’t replaced them and we won’t replace them.’

Mr Miller added that the park will ‘have to raise our prices quite substantially’.

Citing a study in April 2024 by BravoVoucher on the country’s best-value amusement park, he continued: ‘Last year we were the best value theme park in the UK.

‘Now we’re having to stick it up by 25 per cent. We’re not sure how that will affect the customers as they are short of money themselves. Things haven’t really been right since Covid.’

Mr Miller said the park had tried reducing prices last year in an attempt to make money through secondary expenditure by customers – such as on food and drink.

The price of its annual pass has gone up from £50 in 2023 to £60 in 2024 and now £80 this year, with Mr Miller putting the latest increase down to Budget-related cost pressures.

However, last month he temporarily cut the price to £40 for a limited sale period in an attempt to raise income outside the high season.

He added that the park normally has 1,200 people employed in the summer, most of whom are college students on part-time hours who only work during the holidays.

Philip Miller, pictured on the Green Scream, has been involved with Adventure Island since 1976

Many of those employed at Adventure Island especially in the summer are college students

But Mr Miller, whose business is one of Southend’s biggest employers, said: ‘For those, we’re a bit of a lifeline for them – so a lot will be disappointed this year.

‘We’re looking at taking 200 less on and the ones we do have will be doing less hours. It’s the perfect storm.’

The Budget was also ‘stopping capital expenditure’, Mr Miller said, with the park unable to invest in new rides – something it is normally keen to do to encourage previous visitors to return.

He said: ‘We really don’t know how it’s going to finish up. Are we going to hit a recession? It’s a case of survival of the fittest. Come out the other side, we’ll see who’s survived.’

Mr Miller is a director of the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions (Balpa), an industry body with 300 members in leisure parks, piers, zoos, visitor attractions and family entertainment centres.

He said discussions at a recent meeting of the group saw business owners share ‘identical’ stories, adding: ‘There’s people already gone out of business – close to it for a while and now they’re gone.

‘And there’s many for sale – even at the bigger end of the market they are looking to move things off.’

Philip Miller (centre right) at Adventure Island with his daughter Hannah (left), nephew Marc (centre left), who is managing director, and his son James (far right), the operations director

People enjoy the Axis ride at the Adventure Island theme park on a sunny day in Southend

The Crooked House is Adventure Island’s oldest attraction and has been in place since 1949

The Rage rollercoaster is one of the top attractions at Adventure Island, having opened in 2007

He continued: ‘We’re a family business, we have been for the best part of 50 years – I can’t afford to die now. The tax would finish the business.

‘They’d have to sell it all just to pay the tax on me, which is a terribly unfair situation.’

Mr Miller compared the situation to that faced by farmers who are campaigning against new inheritance tax rules and staged another protest outside Parliament last month.

Labour has insisted it will not make a U-turn on its plans to introduce a 20 per cent inheritance tax rate on farms worth more than £1million.

Those changes announced in the Budget are due to come into force in April 2026 and scrap an exemption which meant no inheritance tax was paid to pass down family farms.

And Mr Miller, who was awarded an MBE in 2002 and turns 70 in May, said: ‘Any family business is in the same boat as the farmers. This is the most fed up I’ve ever felt.

The Devils Creek Gold Mine train was one of the top rides in Adventure Island’s heyday

The Pirate Galleon is another ride that was popular with families visiting Adventure Island

Adventure Island used to be known as Peter Pan’s Playground and is on Southend seafront

‘In our game we have to be eternal optimists – we have to beat the weather. But right now it’s the complete opposite.’

He called for a ‘complete reversal’ of the tax changes in the latest Budget, adding that it had ‘failed miserably’ and he ‘really would discourage anyone to start a business’ in the current financial climate.

Adventure Island is part of the Stockvale group of companies in Southend which also includes Sealife Adventure and the Sands by the Sea restaurant.

Ms Reeves previously said she had to increase taxes for employers because ‘we’ve got to raise the money to put our public finances on a firm footing’.

Organisations currently pay a rate of 13.8 per cent on employees’ earnings above a £9,100-a-year threshold.

But Ms Reeves announced last October that a new rate of 15 per cent will come in from April 1, with the threshold reduced to £5,000.

Also from April, the national living wage for workers aged 21 and over will increase by 6.7 per cent from £11.44 an hour to £12.21.

Peter Pan’s Choo Choo Train is another of the rides that was popular at Adventure Island

Adventure Island is located on Southend seafront and was called Peter Pan’s Playground

The Helter Skelter was a feature at Peter Pan’s Playground which became Adventure Island

In Kettering, Wicksteed Park chairman Oliver Wicksteed said the much-loved attraction may cease to exist in its current form unless it manages to secure extra funding.

Operating costs such as fuel and insurance have soared in recent years, with the Budget placing further strain on the park’s stretched resources.

Mr Wicksteed, whose great-grandfather originally opened the park, told the Telegraph that Labour’s ‘socialist approach to raising money’ could prove to be the final nail in the park’s coffin.

Describing the Budget as a ‘hammer blow’, Mr Wicksteed warned that the park’s finances could not absorb the full brunt of these increased costs and that it would lead to the park’s visitors suffering.

‘The people who are paying for this at the end of the day are the consumer and the general public.

‘That’s just a socialist approach to raising money, making it look like it’s coming from business and not the end user, but the net effect on the end user is essentially the same – it costs more,’ Mr Wicksteed said.

The ‘Jungle Safari’ ride at Adventure Island had a sign up reminding people not to smoke

People stand at a burger and hot dog bar at what was then known as Peter Pan’s Playground

Having previously endured financial struggles having collapsed into administration during the pandemic, the park was forced to lay off 115 staff in the summer of 2020.

Another round of lay-offs will now be required to help keep a lid on costs, the chairman added.

In North Tyneside, Wet n Wild in North Shields was home to the UK’s biggest water slide but closed its doors in 2020 after 27 years much to the shock and dismay of locals.

A £1.1million makeover by then owners Serco Leisure had failed to turn around its fortunes after the firm bought the site in 2014.

It had been in financial difficulties for years and closed permanently during the Covid pandemic.

Demolition work on the site was completed last month with borken pieces of waterslides seen amongst the rubble.

Philip Miller (right) is pictured with his father David next to the go-kart track at Peter Pan’s

Philip Miller (front) aged five on a ride at the then-Sunken Garden with a cousin from Canada

The site used to be known as the Sunken Garden and had existed with some rides since 1918

Meanwhile in Cornwall, Flambards shut its doors last November after 48 years again citing ‘rising costs and a steady decline in visitor numbers’.

The announcement left families disappointed with Chris Bates telling the BBC:  ‘Flambards was like our haven away from the stresses and strains of life.’

The closure of the much-loved theme park in Helston spared Cornish tourist attraction bosses to warn of the national insurance hike putting added pressure on the industry.

Nick Reynolds, director of Paradise Park in Hayle, told the BBC that Flambards’ closure was ‘tragic’, adding: ‘The National Insurance increase from the Budget is just going to cripple us and we’re all struggling with the new rate.’

The recent accounts of Suffolk-based Pleasurewood Hills also made for troubling reading with the attraction reporting heavy losses of £340,000 in 2024.

Figures filed to Companies House showed the treble increase in post-tax losses compared to £110,000 the previous year.

The park, owned by The Looping Group, recorded that debts had fallen from £4.2million to £3.8million in the same period.