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Wheel to stay after owners go bust (From York Press)
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York Wheel to stay after owners go bust
10:09am Friday 10th August 2012 in News
The York Wheel
YORK Wheel is to stay open despite its recent operator, Great City Attractions Global (GCAG), being placed in administration.
GCAG, which operated the 53-metre high York Wheel and others in the UK, Australia and Asia, is being wound up by administrators after ceasing to trade on July 30.
The York Wheel and one in Plymouth will continue to trade as usual, having been sold to a company called Shipley Investments before GCAG went into administration.
The Shipley family, of Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands, has a long association with the observation wheel company and other entertainment businesses.
Jason Groocock, of G2 Insolvency Limited, said GCAG’s management had tried to source the investment to save the business, and while there were a number of interested parties, it could not be done in time to save the business.
GCAG by then was operating only one observation wheel in Liverpool, which has closed.
York Wheel returned to the city in December after a previous wheel, based next to the National Railway Museum, closed in November 2008.
In November 2011, after a number of suggested locations were ruled out because of objections by local residents, City of York Council gave permission for the 42-pod wheel, which can carry 1,000 people an hour, to be located in the gardens of the Royal York Hotel until January 2013.
The first wheel was operated by WTA Global Holdings, which went into administration in December 2010 leaving debts of £16 million, including £2.5 million to Shipley Investments and £1.5 million to Jon Shipley, a director of Shipley Investments.
WTA Global Holdings was bought out by Elliot Hall Limited, a company set up by one of WTA’s directors, Elliot Hall, who also lost about £1.5 million in the collapse.
Elliot Hall Limited later changed its name to Great City Attractions Global.
The Press was unable to contact the new owners Shipley Investments.
Stacey Galley, 27 of Fulford , York, who visited the attraction yesterday, said: “It’s great to know that the attraction is staying in York, especially for tourists. I’ve been up in it. It’s a great view.”
Comments(14)
russeboy
says...
11:13am Fri 10 Aug 12
Pedro
says...
11:24am Fri 10 Aug 12
lokifromyork
says...
12:29pm Fri 10 Aug 12
sponge
says...
12:46pm Fri 10 Aug 12
lokifromyork
says...
1:01pm Fri 10 Aug 12
Jiminy Cricket
says...
1:09pm Fri 10 Aug 12
lokifromyork wrote:I think you will find that sponge was trying to draw your attention to the way you had spelled Cheap. Your cheep is the sound a bird makes!
Yep cheep! I would be so offended if I was given one of the front rooms at full rate when there is a BIG wheel just out side the window and people looking in!!
YorkyBoy
says...
1:26pm Fri 10 Aug 12
AngryandFrustrated
says...
1:30pm Fri 10 Aug 12
Fact :- Big Wheel behind the Art Gallery - the initial application was lodged by WTA - they went bust before the application was decided and GCA took up the mantle before YMT saw sense and withdrew the application. That's 2 owners of this thing in 2 years.
Fact:- There are never any queues at the Big Wheel at its current location. Not only that, but whenever I am in that part of town (which is pretty often on various days and at various times), it is spinning and the majority of pods are empty.
Fact:- CGA have now gone bust
1st conclusion? If these wheels were so popular, and could generate revenue and income for the people involved in them, why do the companies that own them keep going bust? (WTA were by no means the first to go down)
2nd conclusion? If these wheels generated income and were an absolute must for a tourist city like York, why are there no queues to go on it (as there are, for example, at the Jorvik Centre) and why are the pods empty during peak times? The answer must be that they are not as popular as the tourism chiefs make out (no doubt blinded by the corporate wagon that accompanies the various planning applications) and that they certainly do not generate tourism.
Perhaps this is a lesson to Ms Cruddas et al - they are metal monstrosities that do nothing to enhance the City of York and to try and suggest otherwise is stupidity at its extreme!
MarkyMarkMark
says...
4:05pm Fri 10 Aug 12
How about "Former owners of Wheel go bust, no impact on anything in York so don't worry about it?"
Subhead: "Local trolls deprived of opportunity to whinge on Press website comments".
:-)
notmyrealname
says...
5:31pm Fri 10 Aug 12
Magicman!
says...
3:06am Sun 12 Aug 12
Yorkies can't set the price, but we can help out with the location by not waggling fingers and saying "oooh this will damage this fine city" every time an application is lodged for the wheel to be cited somewhere.
The wheels that do well are right in the heart of the action... I'm thinking of the one at Nottingham and the one at Manchester (which had been removed when I was last there, though that may be just for the Olympics)... so for one in York to do well it needs to be somewhere central such as beside the river or in parliament street. Where it is now means it only draws attention to people entering the city by rail.
Mullarkian
says...
8:05pm Sun 12 Aug 12
ToniMyers93
says...
4:38pm Fri 17 Aug 12
AngryandFrustrated wrote:A large majority of the pods are often empty as the balance needs to be kept correct. How busy the wheel is at the time determines how many pods are used.
This is just proves the ballocks these wheel operators come out with in their planning applicaions and it also proves the ballocks that the tourism chiefs talk in York when they say that the City should have one and that it generates tourism.
Fact :- Big Wheel behind the Art Gallery - the initial application was lodged by WTA - they went bust before the application was decided and GCA took up the mantle before YMT saw sense and withdrew the application. That's 2 owners of this thing in 2 years.
Fact:- There are never any queues at the Big Wheel at its current location. Not only that, but whenever I am in that part of town (which is pretty often on various days and at various times), it is spinning and the majority of pods are empty.
Fact:- CGA have now gone bust
1st conclusion? If these wheels were so popular, and could generate revenue and income for the people involved in them, why do the companies that own them keep going bust? (WTA were by no means the first to go down)
2nd conclusion? If these wheels generated income and were an absolute must for a tourist city like York, why are there no queues to go on it (as there are, for example, at the Jorvik Centre) and why are the pods empty during peak times? The answer must be that they are not as popular as the tourism chiefs make out (no doubt blinded by the corporate wagon that accompanies the various planning applications) and that they certainly do not generate tourism.
Perhaps this is a lesson to Ms Cruddas et al - they are metal monstrosities that do nothing to enhance the City of York and to try and suggest otherwise is stupidity at its extreme!
For example if pods 1-8 are being used, pods 22-29 will also be used to keep the wheel in balance. There also must be enough customers left on the platform to be able to reload the wheel in a balanced manner to bring down capsules 22-29 without the wheel struggling and it's speed picking up.
If you need this explaining in a different way or in slightly more detail, please, don't hold back.
Sincerely,
Toni Myers (Operator at the Wheel of York.)
again says...
10:50am Fri 10 Aug 12