Pricing & segmentsDartmouth Steam Railway
The railway’s booking page lists adult tickets from Paignton at £24.50, children at £17.50 and a family ticket at £75, for a journey to Kingswear of about 30 minutes. Two adults and two children bought separately would cost £84, so the family ticket saves £9 by our arithmetic, if a family means two adults and two children, which the page doesn’t say. Wikipedia names the operator as Dart Valley Railway Limited and the route as 6.7 miles. The page is undated and gives no passenger numbers.
Why might a railway sell a family ticket for £75 when separate tickets for two adults and two children cost £84? Practise this in AO2 Application.
Interpreting numbersOldway Mansion
Torbay Weekly reported on 21 May 2026 that the next West Tower phase at Oldway Mansion, which Torbay Council owns, was funded by £166,109 from Historic England and £234,226 from the council, which add up to £400,335 by our arithmetic against the £400,000 stated. The wider programme has £8m from the UK Government plus a further £1m from the council. The building has been on the Heritage at Risk Register since 2023, emergency repairs were commissioned in October 2025, and council offices left it in 2013. These are project figures, not the council’s budget.
The two funding shares add up to £335 more than the stated total. What might explain it, and why does it matter? Step by step in AO3 Analysis.
Strategy & stakeholdersPaignton Picture House
Torbay Weekly reported that Torbay Council’s cabinet voted on 26 November 2024 on a partnership with Arts Council England and the Paignton Picture House Trust, recommending £900,000 of Future High Streets Funding. That follows £1.25m of Future High Streets Funding and £3m of Cultural Development Funding, or £5.15m of public funding in total by our arithmetic, and a Historic England grant of £675,246 in 2025. The Grade II* cinema closed in 1999 and has been on the Heritage at Risk Register since 2013. The articles give no total project cost, we haven’t seen the vote’s outcome, and a 2026 reopening is not confirmed.
Should a council keep adding public money to restoring a closed cinema, and who gains or loses? A real judgement for AO4 Evaluation.
Paignton’s economy in the classroom
Wikipedia gives Paignton 67,520 residents at the 2021 census, described as its built-up area. A heritage railway, a council-owned mansion and a restoration trust give students real contexts for pricing, numbers and strategy. We tie these themes to topics on the specification.
Sources: Wikipedia, Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway; Dartmouth Steam Railway booking page; Torbay Weekly, 15 December 2025 and 21 May 2026; Torbay Weekly, 25 November 2024 and early 2025; South Devon College; University of Plymouth. The £9, £400,335 and £5.15m figures are our arithmetic, the Oldway and Picture House projects both involve Torbay Council funding, and the railway page is undated.
