Following the closure of The Flume, an attraction which had originally opened at Alton Towers in 1981, in late 2015, Alton Towers submitted plans in the first half of 2016 for a proposed wooden rollercoaster, codenamed SW8. Unlike the Resort’s previous proposals for wooden rollercoasters, this one would ultimately be realised and open as Wicker Man in 2018, representing Alton Towers’ first wooden rollercoaster!
In April 2016, a Screening Opinion Request was submitted to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council to confirm that an Environmental Impact Assessment would not be required as part of the full planning application for a proposed new rollercoaster to replace The Flume. Although not explicitly referenced amongst these documents, this was believed to correspond to Secret Weapon 8 and followed the submission of an Environmental Screening Application in 2015 for a proposed new attraction for Forbidden Valley which never progressed to a full planning application.
In late May 2016, the original full planning application for Secret Weapon 8 was submitted to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council by Alton Towers Resort. These revealed the full layout of the proposed wooden rollercoaster, together with the accompanying buildings and structures – notably the pre-show, station, maintenance and shop were proposed to all be contained within separate areas of one large building. Also detailed were two theming envelopes, one of which corresponded to the Wicker Man structure, while it seems as though the theming planned for second area (above the turnaround broadly located in the same place as The Flume’s former station) was scrapped.
In early August 2016, slightly amended plans were submitted, with the most notable change being to the pre-show, station, maintenance and shop buildings with four distinct areas now indicated, occupying a slightly smaller area of floor space than previously planned. Changes were also made to the queueline layouts, with the fastrack and disabled queues now routed around the perimeter of the ride area instead of above sections of the track, along with minor changes to the route of the main queue. However, there were no changes to the main track layout, or planned theming features.
In mid-August 2016, an additional application was submitted for the “demolition of existing maintenance/storage buildings and the erection of replacement maintenance/storage buildings” in the back of house area behind Duel, which the cover letter confirmed would be a ‘storage and maintenance facility’ associated with SW8 although its exact use was unclear.
When the original application was granted approval it came with a number of conditions that the Resort would have to satisfy at the respective stage in the development. Some of these conditions required the submission of additional documents to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, with plans of potential interest featured below. They include plans for the drainage infrastructure, a new pathway that was constructed alongside the development for the start of the 2016 season, and for the attraction’s lighting, which provided the first look at SW8’s main theming feature.
