Brighouse Bay Holiday Park in Dumfries, Scotland is enjoying a new lease of life, both fighting and adapting to climate change.

Parks Reap Environmental Rewards

Four holiday parks in Dumfriesshire have cut carbon emissions and slashed energy costs following the introduction of a resource efficiency package from a local research organisation.

The Brighouse Bay, Seaward, Barlochan and Sandyhills caravan parks, which make up the Gillespie Leisure group, participated in the Sustainable Process Improvement scheme offered by the Crichton Carbon Centre. Free to local businesses, the scheme generates a baseline of the parks’ energy, transport, water and raw material use and waste production and makes recommendations on how to reduce this.

All four holiday parks have adopted new practices such as installing timers and turning down heating in addition to larger measures such as installing solar thermal panels to heat their swimming pools. The programme also compliments other environmental accolades achieved by the holiday parks including the Green Business Tourism Scheme, a VIBES sustainable business award, the Scottish Award for Environmental Excellence and a David Bellamy Gold Award for biodiversity.

Douglas Gillespie, director at Gillespie Leisure comments: “Being close to nature with our holiday parks we see climate change first hand and do what we can to limit our impact.

“The changing climate is benefiting the business in itself though, as the better weather brings an upsurge in British holidaymakers opting for a staycation rather than holidaying abroad. The results – a happy local business, a healthy local economy and even greater carbon savings.”