Rachel Reeves has made much of the happy school holidays she spent with her grandparents in Kettering, where she learnt the value of hard work and helped man the Salvation Army shop connected to their church.

In one of many articles highlighting her connection to the Northamptonshire town and her shoemaker forebears, as she campaigned in the town last year ahead of Labour’s landslide, she fondly recalled “going to Wicksteed Park”.

Yet the Chancellor’s warm words mean little to Oliver Wicksteed today as he looks over the pioneering park his great-grandfather built.

And that’s because Reeves’ Budget now threatens to wreck the very attraction she once visited.

“This mustn’t happen; I don’t even want to contemplate it,” Oliver says firmly as we discuss the prospect of the historic attraction having to close amid rising costs, which he attributes in part to the Government’s controversial autumn Budget.

“It’s the impact that [closing] will have on the well-being of people, which would be the thing that would really matter the most because if this place was not accessible to those people, where would they go?”

We’re chatting over a coffee inside the park’s restored Edwardian Pavillion, which enjoys views over the stunning 281-acre estate. Founded in 1921, Wicksteed is the UK’s oldest mainland theme park and offers visitors beautiful gardens and walking trails, as well as rollercoasters and a log flume.

The Reverend Richard Coles and comedian James Acaster are among its celebrity fans.

“Generations of people have come here and have memories,” explains Oliver of its importance to the community. “People met here, they’ve had their first kiss here, they’ve gotten married and celebrated their weddings here. It’s been the fabric of Kettering and the wider area now for over 100 years.”

The park was founded by Oliver’s forebear Charles Wicksteed, a talented and wealthy engineer who was driven to give local families and their children a free and safe place to play and exercise in large green spaces away from the back streets.

At that time, public parks were typically very formal places where children were told to keep off the grass. It is also known as the birthplace of the modern-day playground, as Charles, a clergyman’s son, created swings and slides as we know them today.

As we walk around the free-to-enter grounds, passing laughing children and dog walkers, the influence of the pioneer’s influencing philosophy remains abundantly clear. But that is of little comfort to Oliver, the chair of the Wicksteed Charitable Trust, which owns the park, so concerned is he about keeping it in business.

After a testing few years, in which it had to access emergency funding to recoup losses sustained during the Covid pandemic, the cost of living crisis, coupled with the Chancellor’s National Insurance hike and minimum wage increase, has left the Northamptonshire attraction in danger of closure.

Its running costs amount to £1.4million per year, and Oliver is warning of “difficult decisions” ahead. Last year, approximately 650,000 of the one million visits to the park were free. But Oliver fears he may have to introduce entrance fees due to his business’s soaring costs.

“The prospect of making people pay is not one that we even want to countenance, frankly, but if we can’t balance the books and we can’t get the funding support that we need, then we’ve got to look at that as an option,” he sighs.

“But I and the team will fight that with every fibre in our bodies. It is in our DNA to offer a healthy green space for all the community. It’s what society and communities need and what society should be doing to care for people, especially those who have got less money and are less able to afford to come to places like this.”

Yet in reality, he may have little choice.

There are more than 25 rides and attractions across the Wicksteed estate, including rollercoasters, a ferris wheel, flume and a railway which has carried more than 20 million visitors over the decades. The trust runs community events and educational sessions and maintains the estate’s nature reserve, medieval water meadow and ancient earthworks.

Much of the annual revenue is generated from the attractions, along with shops, cafes, parking and events like weddings. However, Kelly Richardson, the park’s director of finance, says costs caused by the minimum wage hike and national insurance contributions now amount to an extra £50,000 per year.