Alton Towers: See dramatic pictures from moment Smiler crash victims were rescued

Earlier this week, analysts at Numis lowered their full year profit forecast from £279m to £240m, but on Thursday they painted a more upbeat picture.

The company’s half-year results showed revenues up 2.8 per cent and pre-tax profits up nearly 24 per cent to £49m compared with £40m past year.

“The first-half was overshadowed by the serious accident at Alton Towers”.

“There has been a substantial reduction in visitors to Alton Towers and to a lesser extent at Thorpe Park”, said chief executive Nick Varney. Safety is, and must always be, of paramount importance in our business. “These strengths enabled us to deliver a robust set of half-year results and provide confidence in the medium and long term outlook”.

In a trading statement released just days after the company issued a major profits warning, the Alton Towers owner said the accident and the temporary closure of the resort had led to a two per cent fall in like-for-like sales across its theme park division.

Merlin Entertainments added that although hard to assess at this stage, it believes there may be some continued adverse impact on the Resort Theme Parks operating group profitability in 2016.

Like-for-like revenues in the theme parks were down two per cent in the half-yearly results. Over the same period in 2014, Merlin reported profits of £40m.

However, trading in the Midway Attractions operating group was mixed, with strong performances in parts of Asia and Europe offset by a decline in visitor volumes in Hong Kong and London, with the latter suffering from the persistent weakness in the euro.