Isle of Wight vacation park and campsite
How this vacation makes a difference
Environment
Professor David Bellamy named The Orchards Vacation Park as one of the greenest vacation spots-and awarded us with a special accolade for protecting and enhancing the environment.
On the 10th anniversary of the David Bellamy Conservation Awards, David made a visit to the park to present in person our 11th Gold award. To mark the event a butterfly garden was planted with plants to encourage butterflies.
The Gold Award is awarded following detailed independent audit of the parks environmental policies and supported by comments from our guests.
The entrance to the Park is landscaped with many attractive shrubs and rockery plants to encourage wildlife and to enhance the village. We have put up lots of bird boxes and we leave areas to grow naturally to encourage wildlife.
We have produced walking leaflets from the park to encourage our guests to leave their cars on the park and enjoy our beautiful countryside on foot or cycle.
Our Promise is to:
- Participate in local, national and international recycling schemes wherever practicable
- Manage the Park to enhance its wildlife value and provide a positive impact on the local countryside
- Keep energy consumption to a minimum
- Promote good environmental practice to our guests.
Our Facilities centre built 3 years ago was built with great care to incorporate many energy saving initiatives including solar panels, which pre-heat the hot water; non-concussive flow reducing taps and shower heads, low energy light lamps activated by PIRs and a condensing boiler. The outside of the building has a striking modern barn-like design whilst being sympathetic to the surrounding countryside.
Community
At the Orchards we sell local produce and in our shop and use local suppliers whenever we can, our takeaway uses locally sourced products. There is a comprehensive notice board displaying local pubs, restaurants, tourist attractions, local foods and crafts. We are happy to put leaflets in our welcome pack to advertise local events, discount vouchers for the local attractions, pubs etc.
All the team, whenever they are out and about enjoying our Island, if they have had a good experience being it an attraction, great pub with lovely food, good cafe offering good food at competitive pricing, enjoyed a festival, found a new walk route are really keen to share there experience with our guests.
We work with local business to bring a unique visitor experience to our guests. We offer Archery Courses, Falconry Courses, Scuba Diving, Alpaca Experience, Guided walks and not to forget the legendry Mr Randini, a traditional Punch and Judy man to bring a smile to the young and not so young.
We facilitate children’s swimming lessons in our indoor swimming pool and have offered the pool free of charge to the school for fund raising events. We also have a local membership to the pools available to our local friends and neighbours.
Many of our team have participated in local charity events, many of us have Walked the Wight for our local hospice, Karen has for a few years competed in race for life, Stef one of our pool attendants swan the Solent for a local swimming pool, to name but a few. Debbie our general manager is a Governor at the local primary school and a member of a local community group.
We believe where possible to employ local people, in peak-season up to 34 people, out of which 29 live with an 8 miles radius of the park.
Landscape
We have produced walk and cycle route leaflets from the park with many incorporating a stop off at a local pub, cafe, and attraction along the route.
Quite a few of our team being dog owners and keen walkers are happy to offer their experience of the local landscape. Debbie has produced a leaflet of her favourite walks for all to enjoy.
For 2012 we are lucky to have a local lady who is very enthusiastic walker coming to lead walks and share her knowledge with our guests. She will also be offering an informative and entertaining presentation on the Isle of Wight.
Our aim for 2012 is to develop even further our connections to local businesses and our new website has a blog page for guests to keep in contact with us and Debbie is planning on creating a personal blog of all the great places she visits and all the events she attends.
Our location is literally sandwiched between important parts of the Islands Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; with the Newtown Bay and estuary to the north, the stunning Down’s to the south and the River Yar to our west, we are proud that Orchards is the ideal place from which to explore this wonderful landscape.
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