Holiday developer interested in 300 acres

A LUCRATIVE European-style woodland holiday campus could be developed in the midlands after a major player in the industry revealed it is scouting for a 300-acre site.

Center Parcs UK, which specialises in activity holiday packages in forests, said it considers a move across the Irish Sea as the most logical way to expand.

Company chief executive, Martin Dalby, told The Times of London after opening its fifth British holiday village in 2010 it hopes to focus on acquiring a site here.

“Ireland is interesting and could well be our next location, although, given the size of the population, it would probably be two thirds of the size of our current sites,” he said.

“We’ve had some discussions over the last three and we’ve made some contacts, but that’s all. We’ve not made any commitments.”

Mr Dalby said the company did not think Britain could support more then five parks so depending on profits it wanted to look elsewhere.

Center Parcs UK is an off shoot of a Dutch company which pioneered activity holidays in European forests 40-years ago. The UK operation is controlled by the US property investment giant Blackstone Group.

Currently Center Parcs UK is investing €250 million in a new 400 acre site in Bedfordshire, England to open in 2010.

As part of this development it expects to employ 1,500 people and plant 500,000 trees.

This will also see the construction of 700 holiday houses and a hotel — this aspect provoked angry opposition from locals who said it would spoil the area’s green belt.

Despite opposition the Bedfordshire site was given go-ahead and is on course to open in 2010. Mr Dalby said moving to Ireland would be contingent on this site opening successfully.

He said based on current trends the outlook was good for its new campus to be profitable.

“Summer is looking as good as last year. We’ve seen no sign of any slowdown in bookings or spend on site. If anything, the euro exchange rate is helping,” he said.

Each of Center Parcs’ British campuses has more than 10 bars and restaurants, a water-sports’ complex and can cater for more than 3,500 guests at any time.

The company said if it moves to Ireland it would prefer to develop a park in the centre of the country, but it would also consider site north of the border if this was not feasible.