Somerset Zoo at risk

As tourism numbers across the south west take a downturn, a number of attractions here in Somerset are coining under pressure. James Garrett takes a closer look.

Dear readers

Today’s piece is for our paying subscribers.

A lot of our material is free. Free because we believe that good quality local news should be available to everyone.

But we are still a business with bills to pay and that means we need a source of income too. And if you want real news, investigation and analysis, that can’t be delivered for free.

So please consider taking a paying subscription to Somerset Confidential today. You can do that here:

Our news is always original, based on our own research and investigation. For £30 a year you can get access to all of our material including articles like today’s.

Subscribing means you will be helping to finance independent journalism, journalism without an agenda. Journalism that seeks nothing more than to hold those in power to account.

We do offer free subscriptions too, so if you can’t afford a paid subscription, please consider a free one. It will give you a taster of what we do, why we are different and you’ll not miss an issue. You can do that here.

Please also share our posts as it helps us reach a bigger audience and gain new readers.

Thank you.

Andrew Lee - editor

---

The Tropiquaria zoo in West Somerset has joined a growing list of tourist and leisure attractions in the South-West at risk of permanent closure as they struggle to cope with declining visitor numbers.

Owner Chris Moiser has started a Go Fund Me page, hoping to raise at least £10,000 to try to see the zoo through the winter. "Even with a kind bank and an understanding landlord we will find it hard to get through to our main school holiday earning periods," he warned.

Tropiquaria, housed in a 90-year old ex-BBC transmitter station (below) on a 5.5 acre site at Washford Cross, near Watchet, threatens to join a growing list of attractions across the wider region which have closed in the past 12 months.

They include Dairyland, a children's adventure park in Newquay, Flambards in Helston, a 45-year old theme park offering aerial rides and a Victorian village, Dingles Fairground Museum in Milford Lifton, Devon and Cobbaton Combat Collection, a military vehicles museum at Bideford which first opened in 1981.

Exactly a year ago, Shepton Mallet Prison was about to shut, threatened with closure after a decade as a tourist attraction.  However, the jail, which received its first inmates in 1625 and closed as a prison in 2013, was reprieved this summer.