Blackpool
Very sad to hear the moat has led to an animal's death in the past and shocked that it is still in place afterwards. Those smooth sides leading down to the water look very slippery and I imagine make it impossible to climb back up if an orang does fall in. Don't moats with sides like that usually have ropes or chains leading down into the water so that an animal can grab hold and climb out if they do end up in trouble?
Colchester
It does seem strange for a zoo as good as Colchester (not a world-class zoo by any stretch but one that's likely to be in most people's top 10 UK zoos) to have such a poor orangutan outdoor enclosure. The enclosure would be considered substandard in its own right but it's that perimeter wall and the poor wellbeing it brings that sends it plummeting down people's lists. They seem to have built themselves into a corner with it, unable to improve it even if they wanted to thanks to its awkward location, apart from perhaps extending it Southwards; squeezing it between the church ruins and the service road into what looks like a staff carpark. (However, I don't see why they can't immediately knock down that opaque wall and replace it with some mesh fencing to give the orangs some sense of the outside world).
Other than that, the only way for a new outdoor orangutan enclosure at Colchester would be to build one in another part of the zoo grounds (although that would of course require an expensive new house too). However, the impression I get from Colchester is that there is very little space anywhere to build anything new of significant scale, with every nook and cranny being taken up with an exhibit of some kind. This route would therefore mean losing several existing enclosures (some of which may not be a big loss). Another option if the zoo wanted to construct entirely new orangutan facilities would be to commandeer a large chunk of the existing visitor's carpark .
Dudley
For those who for some reason assume that Dudley's new enclosure doesn't contain anything for swinging/brachiation, here's a couple of photos that prove otherwise. Both photos show approximately half of the space.
The climbing structure consists of a mixture of wooden poles and a large number of ropes that criss-cross the whole thing. It looks possible for the orangs to traverse the entire structure by using the ropes alone if they wanted to, but of course they have the choice to use whatever they please and go in whatever direction they want to. There's also a couple of hammocks, platforms, and a shelter, plus 3 large nets for them to brachiate along.
I'd also say that the structure is quite open, not dense, crowded or tightly packed as some climbing structures at other zoos might be.
Monkey World
With regards to the appearance of MW's outdoor orang enclosures being described as looking "hideous" and "industrial", although it's not that extreme or as big a deal to me, I tend to agree somewhat. I guess it comes from two things: the fact the ropes/firehoses are red in colour rather than green, and the use of the long plastic tubing (which I can't imagine the orangs using, apart from the ones that have been used to form a shelter).
