West Country Water Park - Go Karting
We visited for the Go-Karting and ended up pulling our son off the track early. The organiser was friendly enough, but the marshals are very inexperienced and lack any interest of safety on track. There were drivers on track that were driving dangerously, purposely ramming other karts and not respecting the flags. It was more like a scene of bumper cars at the fairground. One lad never slowed down on any yellow flag and at one point drove fast around a kart that was being handled by a marshal on track. These drivers not once got black flagged and spoken to. For safety reasons we stopped the race and took our son off the track as it was a big accident waiting to happen. The quality of the track is very bad. It is extremely bumpy, to the point it caused red marks on our son’s back. It is a shame as it could be a great venue, but there is A LOT of work that needs to be done to make it more safe, professional and competitive with other venues. Improvements on the track and more staff training on safety and the use of flags would be a huge start. I’m afraid we won’t be returning.
Reply from West Country Water Park
Thank you for your feedback.
We take every safety concern seriously, which is why I called you as soon as you raised your complaint by email, and then personally spoke with the other participants, their spectators, and each member of the team on duty to establish whether we had an underlying problem.
None of them shared your account of events. Your son was keen to return to the session; leaving early was your choice.
As our manager explained on the day, our safety systems were all tested and working, and reprimands were issued to drivers not meeting our driving standards during the session.
You are of course entitled to your opinion. To anyone reading this review, I'd encourage you to visit and speak with Jason and the team in person. You'll find them friendly, polite, and exceptionally safety conscious. Our track is new (and expanding soon), we train our team regularly, and we meet frequently with experienced track operators such as the team at Haynes Karting to ensure we operate to the highest standards.
It's always disappointing to receive a poor review, and I would hold my hands up if we had got this wrong. Having investigated thoroughly, I'm confident we operated well within our safety guidelines.
I do happily put my own three children in my team's hands and they can't shut up about it, neither can their friends :-)
Shaun
