who WERE the owners of Windsor Safari Park?

[falkor]

YEAR	OWNER	PAID	comments
1969	Billy Smart's Circus	unknown	Each of the 3 brothers had sumptious apartments on the 2nd floor of the mansion
1977	Trident Television	£3M	A former TV executive with no previous experience of wild animals was now put in charge
1984	Southbrook and City Holdings	unknown	Andrew Haworth-Booth, an intelligent leader with considerable experience took over
1988	Themes International PLC	£19M	Windsor Safari Park was to be "themed" into an African "experience"
1992	R E C E I V E R S	£0	Themes International went bust

From the marvellous 1994 BOOK "THE ANIMALS CAME OUT TWO BY TWO" by David Taylor

Initially it was Ronnie, David and Billy Smart. Ronnie was the MD while his two brothers toured with the circus. In 1971 the circus closed down. The Smart family owned the park until 1977 when they sold it to Trident TV.

Maurice Vass, who I believe had once been the manager of Radio Luxembourg, because the new MD. Trident were the owners of Yorkshire and Tyne Tees Television and were headed up by a Mr Thomas [cant remember his first name] whose hobby was carriage driving.

The park had had its heyday by the mid 80s and was sold on to a leisure company.

Hi,

When I was there Ronnie and Billy Smart were running the park.

Ronnie I got along with pretty well.
Billy was a different story. He always rode around the park the wrong way in his Rolls Royce.

Regards

I was there when the Smarts owened it and it was the best years when they sold up they new what was coming and jumped ship.

Regards

Sas

[falkor]

they knew what was coming?

what was coming?

The expense of up-grading the Park and the Dolphinarium it was going to cost the earth and would have been a Monster task, you would need a Billionair to take it on with very deep pockets you can only imagine how much it would cost today and you need a real Marineland like in the US to get the crowds in to pay for it all.
Regards

Sas