A family fairground success story
The Botton family have been running a traditional fairground, arcade and amusement park in the heart of Skegness since taking over the Pleasure Beach in 1965.
Jim, the Director of the company, took over from his father and now heads day-to-day activities and administration.
He said: “The Pleasure Beach is a family business. It belonged to my father before me, and now that I am coming to the end of my career, I will be leaving it to my boys.”
The company began using Richard Anthony for its accounting needs more than 25 years ago and, since engaging their services, has grown to be the main attraction on the Skegness landscape.
Jim said: “We were having problems with our accountants before, and we started to use Richard Anthony based on a recommendation.”
For Jim, it is important that Richard Anthony understands the nature of his business and its dedication to family values.
“We run an amusement park – it’s a niche business – but Richard Anthony points us in the right direction and doesn’t let us make financial mistakes.”
Jim said that Richard Anthony’s services have made running the business much easier.
“We continue to run our side of the business and Richard Anthony looks after everything else. They reshuffled things to make it easier for both sides and it’s worked well ever since we started working with them.
“It’s a good relationship and there is a mutual respect between us despite how different our professions are.
“They have been working with us so long now that the team at Richard Anthony are almost part of the family!”
He added that the experts at Richard Anthony were indispensable during the COVID crisis.
“Through COVID they told us which standing orders to stop, and which bills we needed to pay. We had a few hard times, but I knew I could pick up the phone and speak to Richard Anthony whenever I needed to.
Unexpectantly, the pandemic had some positive outcomes for Jim and his business, who would not have been in such a good financial position without Richard Anthony’s help.
“Since the pandemic, obviously with people not going far for holidays and preferring to travel within the UK, we’ve done quite well over the last two or three years.
“We even renegotiated the lease to the amusement park during the pandemic and Richard Anthony supplied all the information that the council needed.”
Jim plans to maintain the relationship between Botton’s Pleasure Beach and Richard Anthony going forward.
He said: “Of course, we’re going to keep using Richard Anthony for our accounting! We’ve had no problem so far and we fully intend to carry on using them for the foreseeable future.”
Jim Botton – Pleasure Beach (Skegness)
