Wicker Man: Alton Towers to open new wooden rollercoaster

Alton Towers has unveiled plans for the UK’s first new wooden rollercoaster since the 1990s.

The Wicker Man ride, which will open to guests at the Staffordshire theme park in the spring, will send stout-hearted riders hurtling along a 2,028ft. wooden track which passes through a flaming 58ft.-tall ‘wicker man’.

The ride shares its name with the 1973 horror film in which Edward Woodward’s police inspector is encased in a wicker cage and burnt alive as a human sacrifice by residents of a remote island.

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A short promotional clip released today by the resort appears to show riders bursting out of a fiery inferno.

Bradley Wynne, the theme park's creative lead, said: “We hope visitors will be blown away by Wicker Man's breath-taking scale whilst the primal essence of the wooden coaster and astonishing effects will leave them delighted, exhilarated and eager to ride again.”

It will be the first wooden rollercoaster built in the UK since the Megafobia ride opened at Oakwood Park in Pembrokeshire in 1996, says The Daily Telegraph.

Andy Hine, chairman of the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain, said that enthusiasts were “so pleased” to hear the news, telling Sky News: "We've been hoping that Alton Towers would invest in a wooden coaster for a long time.”

Five years ago, an article in fan publication Theme Park Tourist entitled ‘Why the UK will never see a new wooden rollercoaster’ claimed that wooden tracks were too reminiscent of “rickety” and “unsafe” mid-century Blackpool ‘bone-shakers’ to appeal to Brits.

Anticipating the obvious concerns about combining wood and fire, the park stressed that safety testing had been “rigorous”, with operators undergoing “hundreds of hours” of training.