Fess Up Sands Heritage! How Many Visitors?

On 29^th December 2015, 6 days after reaching a £2.9 million debt repayment agreement with its creditors,  Dreamland Margate issued a press release entitled “Dreamland in Numbers”. Unfortunately the numbers published by Dreamland Margate did not include a full  breakdown of how many  people had paid  to visit the attraction in the 6 months it has been operating. Bearing in mind that at least £5million of Thanet council taxpayers money has been invested in Dreamland and that currently the operators, Dreamland
Margate,  are enjoying the benefits of a 7 year  rent free lease courtesy of TDC  , the least  they can do is  to make  full visitor information available to the community which is so generously supporting  them.

I seem to remember that Margate’s other major visitor attraction, the Turner Contemporary, was more than happy to publish its record breaking visitor figures covering  the 6 weeks after it had opened in 2011.  So why not Dreamland Margate? Surely as a publically subsidized  operation Dreamland Margate has a responsibility to be transparent and accountable. I also wonder why Thanet Council has remained silent on the lack of any meaningful visitor information being published by Dreamland Margate? I have been in touch with both organisations asking for the data to be released. Anything less would be disrespectful to  the people of Thanet and may well fuel rumours that Dreamland Margate has something to hide.