Last week, I was invited to tour Gulliver’s Valley Resort in Wales alongside Rotherham Mayor, Cllr Rukhsana Ismail, and Carrie Sudbury, CEO of Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, to celebrate five years since the Resort opened.

Julie Dalton, managing director, and Craig Seedhouse, Resort Director, led a tour of the park, alongside graduates of their Trainee Management Programme. The programme gives staff the opportunity to work across various areas of the business to develop a wide range of skills and knowledge.

During the tour, Julie, Craig and I rode on Gyrosaur, which was quite the thrill at 10am in the morning!

Gulliver’s continues to grow, with planning permission for numerous hotels on the 250-acre site, in addition to the existing accommodation hosting family stays and school trips. Alongside this, Skills Street is set to officially launch in September following a number of successful schools trips over the last few weeks. Skills Street is an immersive world-of-work experience, giving school children the opportunity to widen their career aspirations.

Within the park, Valley Wildlife has become the UK’s newest zoo, with a wide range of animals including alpacas, guinea pigs, meerkats, porcupines, creepy crawlies and reptiles! A group of school children were taking it in turns to hold an albino ball python, at which point the Mayoress and I were given the opportunity to hold the snake too!!

Thank you for the invitation to celebrate your 5th birthday, I had a brilliant time visiting. A huge congratulations to everyone at the theme park for your continued growth and success. Rother Valley is very lucky to have such a fantastic attraction in the constituency. I recommend visiting if you can!