Theme Park season ticket holders have been left outraged at a new booking fee brought in because some are 'abusing the system'.
Due to coronavirus Paultons Park in Hampshire, which is home to the ever popular Peppa Pig World, is limiting capacity meaning even loyal season ticket holders have to book in advance, with many days sold out completely.
Traditionally those with year-long tickets could just turn up and walk in to enjoy the attractions at the site, which has been voted the UK's best theme park every year since 2016.
But due to the limited numbers, season ticket holders were asked to book a free slot, before simply showing up at the entrance gates.
Paultons Park, however has now sparked outrage with an announcement on its social media pages, saying they are disappointed with some of their season ticket holders.
Have you been affected by the introduction of the booking fee? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk
The statement introducing a £1 fee for each person attending, read: "After closely reviewing the figures for Season Ticket Holder visits over the last two months we have been disappointed to see many Season Ticket Holders misusing the pre-booking system and not using our freely available cancellation portal if they are not visiting.
"We have still been seeing a no-show rate of over 30%, with some individuals pre-booking over 30 tickets and only visiting 4 to 5 times.
"To address this, and to provide the fairest solution for all our Season Ticket Holders, we are now introducing a £1 charge per guest for Season Ticket Holders to book their spaces.
"We had really hoped we would not need to do this but now feel there is no option."
The theme park is donating all the money from this booking fee to its charity, the Southampton Children’s Hospital Charity.
It also adds that if abuse of the system continues, season ticket holders will be restricted to just one booking a week.
And goes on to add that all season tickets can enter the park every day from 2pm without booking in advance.
The announcement was met with shock by its season tickets holders with many writing on the park's Facebook page.
Makeala Tate posted to say: "This is beyond a joke!
"Some of us haven’t even been able to book because there is never any spaces now on top of what you charge for a season ticket your going to now charge us to even book!
"Honesty outrageous."
Sarah Parker, who has been a season ticket holder for five years say she won't be renewing.
She said: "Paultons Park you should be ashamed of yourselves!!!
"I get the frustration with no shows but you have their details so why can you not block them from coming for a week or so or only let season ticket holders book a day at a time."
Rebecca Fowler said: "Paultons Park if you have the technology to work out that 30% of pre-booked tickets have been no-shows, surely you can fine the minority of members who have abused the system.
"Punishing the 70% of us that have NOT done anything wrong does not seem in any way fair!"
And Stacey Maidens added: "Why can't people be more considerate for other people.
"The selfishness of some people is beyond belief.
"Ring up if you can't attend your booking. It's polite.
"£1 on top of the hundreds you have already spent on the season tickets themselves takes the mick a bit."
Paultons Park managing director Richard Mancey told Mirror Online: "Many other major theme parks and zoos in the UK have already implemented booking charges for season ticket holders in order to address similar issues, where already limited capacity has been impacted by high numbers of no-shows.
"We have resisted implementing this system until now to protect our community of extremely loyal season ticket holders, the majority of which use the system correctly.
"However, based upon experience of other businesses like us, this would appear to be the fairest way to make the situation workable for all.
“We will keep this charge under constant review and my fervent hope is that we will be able to remove it very soon along, with the requirement to pre-book all day visits.”
