Around the world, entertainment companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on shiny new theme park rides and attractions. It's a highly competitive market.

They're big money-spinners for the owners and can help boost local economies too. We look at why a medium-sized town in southern England could soon become a magnet for thrill-seeking tourists, and we travel to Sweden, where a theme park with a very local flavour has been celebrating its 100th anniversary.

But what happens if you live next door to the planned site of a major new attraction? And do the promises of new jobs and improved infrastructure in an area always come to fruition?

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Presented and produced by Elizabeth Hotson

(Picture: People hanging upside down on a roller coaster track. Credit: Getty Images)