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Holiday park operator seeks year-round opening to meet staycation demand

Holiday park operator Verdant Leisure is appealing to councils to allow year-round opening to enable it to cope with post-lockdown demand for staycations.

Not all of the company’s ten sites in Scotland and the north of England have licences which permit them to open for 12 months of the year.

However, with the enforced closure and demand for UK breaks so high, the company is in talks with local authorities to amend this for 2020/21.

Extending the season for breaks is high on the agenda for Verdant Leisure and the British tourism industry as a whole after lockdown from March to June put considerable strain on the many local economies in the UK that rely on tourism to survive, according to a spokesperson.

The company is also spending £500,000 on two of its parks to help meet demand.

A new luxury lodge development is due for completion on August 10 at Thurston Manor Leisure Park in East Lothian.

A new pitch development at Perthshire-based Erigmore Leisure Park is due for completion in September.

Chief executive Graham Hodgson said: “We’re currently seeing record-breaking bookings across all our UK parks. Last week alone we saw nearly as many bookings as in the whole of July 2019.

“This is really helping to boost the local economies in the Scottish and English regions where our parks are located, as each park provides the customer base for numerous other regional businesses, including local suppliers, shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes and visitor attractions.

“As with many businesses in the sector, we have seen an uplift in last minute bookings with more people than ever wanting to take a break with their family in the UK – a trend which we predict will continue for the rest of 2020 and well into 2021.

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