Center Parcs UK & Ireland

Meet our new Corporate Sustainability Manager, Ellie Stevenson 👋 Having held previous positions at TK Maxx and The Works, Ellie brings with her a wealth of experience and since joining us has been focusing on our 2030 targets. Welcome to the team Ellie! To find out more about our sustainability journey, visit: https://lnkd.in/eEutD99A

It’s National Tree Week 🌳 With six sites across the UK and Ireland, we manage almost 2,500 acres of woodland which includes caring for and ensuring the long-term sustainability of these wonderful forests and the species which live within them. As a business, we have been operating in the UK for more than three decades, but did you know some of our forests can trace their roots back to the 11th century? They have played host to kings and legends 👑 supported local industry, and even hosted an archaeological dig ⚒️ To find out more, visit: https://lnkd.in/dNrep5jp

We’re thrilled to announce that we won both a gold and silver award at the British Travel Awards last night 👏 To be recognised for Best Company for UK Family Holidays and Best Company for UK Short Breaks, is a true testament to our colleagues’ hard work which contributes to our success each year. Well done to all the finalists and winners of the night!

Last night we hosted our annual Service Excellence Awards, which recognise our colleagues that go above and beyond 🏆 Colleagues from each of our six villages and Head Office came together in Nottingham to celebrate our achievements over the last year. Well done to all the winners, particularly Longleat Forest who scooped the top award of the night 👏

Our Winter Wonderland breaks are in full swing, and we recently launched an app just in time ❄️ Guests will be able to see their upcoming or current breaks in the app, as well as their itinerary during their stay. Other features include an interactive map while on our villages and being able to add booking passes to phone wallets. Also new to Winter Wonderland is our Snow Zone, where families can take advantage of a photo opportunity in the giant snow globe as snow falls around them 🌨️ To find out more, visit: https://lnkd.in/e-RrCxAY

Exciting news: Our plans to bring Center Parcs to Scotland 🌲 We’re excited to announce that, after many months of searching, we have identified a site for a potential Center Parcs village in Scotland. The site is in the Scottish Borders, north of Hawick and south of Selkirk, and around 90 minutes from Edinburgh and Newcastle, and two hours from Glasgow. While we expect the village to look and feel like our existing villages, we are planning to take a bold, new approach and create our own woodland by planting thousands of new trees on the site, which is currently mostly used for grazing. We have already carried out a number of site surveys and we believe that this is the right location for a Center Parcs in Scotland. Although this is a big day for us, it is only the start of a long journey towards submitting a planning application to the local authority. We will now continue with rigorous site surveys and pre-planning works, as well as drawing up detailed designs. We are hoping to submit a planning application for 700 lodges, plus a range of leisure facilities - including a Subtropical Swimming Paradise and Aqua Sana Forest Spa - in 2025. For ongoing information, updates and plans relating to the project, please visit: https://lnkd.in/ePESSXiX. You can also sign up for email updates via the website.

Our colleagues do fantastic things for charities and local causes, and recently our Applications Release Manager Matthew Darkins was recognised at the Bury St Edmunds Community Awards 2024 for running their local Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Relay for Life event 🏃 Matthew has been Co-Chair of the event, with his friend David for nearly 10 years, and during that time, the event has raised more than £250,000! At the recent awards, the duo was named ‘Highly Commended for Charity of the Year’. Matthew said: “This year’s event was a huge success and raised more than £40,000 for Cancer Research UK. After nine years of hard work, David and I were honoured to be recognised by the town we host it for. It was a wonderful evening and a very proud moment for us.” Well done Matthew 👏

💆 We’re so excited to be bringing [ comfort zone ] products and treatments to our Aqua Sana Forest Spa guests.   It’s really important to us that we work with companies who share our ethos. [ comfort zone ] has been a certified B Corp since 2016 and, like Center Parcs, they take their responsibility to the planet and people very seriously.   Here are just a few of the great initiatives that [ comfort zone ] is involved in: 🏢 Research and development takes place at their carbon-neutral head office in Parma, Italy - where they built Europe’s first 10-hectare regenerative organic farm in collaboration with the Rodale Institute   ♻️100% of their waste is recycled or recovered   🌊Their products are 100% Certified Plastic Neutral, meaning that for every product they sell with plastic packaging, an equal amount of ocean-bound plastic is collected and removed from the environment. To date the group have prevented over 1,700 tonnes of plastic from reaching the ocean (equivalent to over 85 million plastic bottles)   🧴They are focusing on eco-designing their packaging, reducing the use of natural resources, choosing the most circular materials and introducing refillable solutions. They’re also replacing all virgin plastic with recycled or bio-based plastic   Find out more by visiting: https://lnkd.in/ecAKgc69

🏆We've been named the best holiday park to visit as an electric vehicle driver by Drax Electric Vehicles ⚡! ⚡Each of our UK villages has around 100 electric vehicle charging points for our guests to use, helping guests keep their environmental impact as low as possible. ⚡We're also really proud that all 512 of our electric vehicle charging points are powered by 100% renewable electricity, making this an even more sustainable option. Here's what our Director of Sustainability, Jerome Baddley CEnv FIEMA, had to say about the accolade: 📣 "At Center Parcs, we're committed to operating in a sustainable and ethical way throughout our business. While driving is better for the planet than air travel, we are aware that travel to and from our villages could still have a big environmental impact, so we are working hard to help our guests keep this impact as low as possible."

🌲As the autumnal weather starts to take over, we’re looking back on the last glimpses of summer with our August nature news. 🦇The team at Sherwood Forest celebrated International Bat Night by helping guests use bat detectors to identify the species busily flying around the forest. Four species were seen and heard – Common and Soprano Pipistrelle, Noctule and Daubenton’s bat. 🌻At Elveden Forest, the team have been working on a new wildflower and invertebrate area, opening up the canopy and clearing away weeds to encourage ground-nesting insects and, hopefully, some native Breckland flora. 🦦The team at Longleat Forest were faced with a mystery last month, when they spotted a large otter spraint (otter poo) on a stone in front of a trail camera. Despite checking through 120 images and narrowing the timeframe down to between 1.30am and 3.30am, there was no otter to be seen on the camera… 🦅The woodland of Whinfell Forest is providing a home for a number of sparrowhawks and buzzards. Both species had previously declined due to pesticide use and persecution, but the numbers are recovering, and we have heard a juvenile sparrowhawk and young buzzards calling for their parents. 🦔Woburn Forest’s Conservation Rangers have been conducting surveys looking at hedgehogs, invertebrates and butterflies. We’ve also been working with Bedfordshire Bat Group to check bat boxes, which are being used by Soprano Pipistrelles and Brown Long-eared bats. 🦋Butterfly surveys have continued at Longford Forest, with Silver-washed Fritillary recorded amongst many other species. The Silver-washed Fritillary exhibit a dazzling dance during courtship, involving rapid wing flutters which create a shimmering effect.