Wish You Were Here - Craiglwyd Hall Caravan Park
Located at the foot of the Penmaenmawr Mountain, overlooking the spectacular coastal views from Llandudno and across to Anglesey, Puffin Island and beyond, Craiglwyd Hall Caravan Park is truly a holiday location that stands out from the crowd.Surrounded by natural beauty, this secluded luxury park is perfect for a peaceful get away, but at the same time is close to popular resorts and attractionsand has easy access to lovely mountain walks. On site,Craiglwyd Hall offers visitors a play area, on site bar, games room, gym and is a dog-friendly location.The flag ship of the Thornley Leisure group, the park’s many awards include a top five-star tourist board grading – but according to managing director David Thornley, the latest Go North Wales accolade has an extra significance “The award is especially important to us because it recognises not just the quality of the park’s facilities and surroundings, but also the levels of hospitality and service provided to guests. “It’s our staff team which deserves the lion’s share of the credit for this, and they do a great job in making everybody feel welcome and helping them enjoy their stay. “It’s been a superb year for Craiglwyd Hall Caravan 
Park and the group as a whole, and I hope the publicity from this award will help benefit all tourism businesses here in North Wales,” added David. Situated on the north coast of County Conwy between Anglesey and the Menai Straits, the park provides tranquil landscaped grounds in a picture-postcard setting. It has long proved popular with families wishing to own a caravan holiday home in one of North Wales’s most popular areas for lovers of natural scenic beauty.
Craiglwyd Hall Caravan Park
Tel. 01492 623355
www.thornleyleisure.co.uk
“Offering indoor play is a huge benefi t to parents holidaying in the UK. It is good to have an indoor weather attraction for children, so there is always something to do,” comments Clare Jackson of Hendra Holiday Park. The park’s soft play area, known as Henry's Play Loft is designed for children from the ages of 0-10 years old and has a tots area for the under twos. Meanwhile parents and families can relax in the comfortable seating area and there are refreshments available too. “We continue to update and maintain the areas as required to keep them clean and in tip-top condition,” says Clare. “The soft play area is generally popular among the smaller children, as is our Oasis indoor pool, which is one of the reasons we get many repeat bookings. There is a small charge for guests to use the pool facilities, but the soft play area is free.” According to the Play Providers Association (PPA), there are well over 600 independently operated indoor play sites across the country, with an increasing number of pubs, restaurants and holiday parks now offering indoor play equipment. “Over the last few years there has been a considerable increase in the number of indoor soft play areas. At the same time the scope of activities in these areas has increased and more adventurous items are constantly being introduced,” comments a spokesperson for the PPA.
Steve Sylvester, Managing Director of KOMPAN UK and Ireland agrees: “A cleverly designed indoor play space will have the end result of happier, more positive visitors who will thrive in your environment and forever long to return.” He adds: “Your play area can be part of your success story, inspiring great tales of the perfect family holiday or day out.” KOMPAN is a leading supplier of playground equipment for play areas, parks and sports areas. The company specialises in the design of innovative equipment for all ages and abilities. “Young children love a space filled with bright colours, friendly shapes and rounded edges. A well-planned play area can be one big play invitation to role-play; firefighter or princess one day and pirate captain the next" says Steve.
Claims are also impacted by major weather events from time to time. In early 2018, the Beast from the East and Storm Emma resulted in a high rate of weather-related damage claims. For owners, matters are made more complicated as no two park businesses are the same: every business’ insurance requirements are unique. “Your customers will want the reassurance of extensive insurance cover for accidental damage, fi re, theft, storm, flooding and vermin,” advises Liz Harrison from Leisuredays. “Severe flooding, storms, or fire can cause signifi cant damage to a holiday park and if you’re in the unfortunate situation where many units are written off, then you’ll want these quickly removing from your park,” Liz continues. “The Leisuredays policy automatically includes £10,000 for each damaged unit to be removed, and for a new unit to be resited and connected to utilities.” Many industry brokers operate a network of local account executives who can support you in identifying your individual insurance needs.
Tim Smyth, MD of Compass: “A good account executive will take time to fully understand your business and how it operates – and will support you in deciding on the appropriate levels of cover you need accordingly. “They will look for hidden and not-so-obvious risks which, left undetected, may pose a threat to your park. Sometimes optional/additional covers may be necessary, and your AE should be able to fi nd what best suits YOUR needs.” In addition, a good account executive should also be committed to regularly visiting your park and building a good relationship with you. Tim suggests: “They should aim to carry out an insurance review at regular intervals to check whether the insurance needs of your business have changed. If they have, your cover may need to be adjusted to reflect this.”
Some other key areas to consider when arranging insurance cover include the adequacy of your Sums Insured, the changing needs of your business and the terms, conditions and exclusion attached to your cover. Tim explains: “We sometimes see new clients whose previous cover or sum insured would not be adequate should an incident impact their income over a long period of time (e.g. longer than just 12 months). Protecting any Liability to the public through products or activities provided on the Park is also crucial.” At Wilby, holiday park insurance specialists through their Park Protect scheme, a campaign has been launched to help businesses protect themselves by raising the limits of their liability insurance. Wilby is recommending that businesses increase their indemnity limit for employers’ public and products liability cover to at least £30m. The company of trusted independent chartered insurancebrokers argue that recent cases mean that the bar has been raised, and businesses and individuals need to increase their level of protection.
Wilby’s Managing Director Richard Blackburn explains: "It can be hard to imagine that when you have employers’, public or products liability cover of £5m, £10m or even £20m that there may be times this can be insufficient. “However, we live in an age where levels of litigation have never been higher. Businesses and individuals have an increased awareness of their legal rights, coupled with the relative ease of accessing the UK legal system to pursue a compensatory award where negligence is alleged.” The issue has been made worse by the fact that the costs attached to claims are also being driven ever higher, with previous awards used as a basis for future settlements. Changes to the discount rate, the figure used to help set compensation pay-outs when people suffer serious injuries, made in March 2017 mean the potential for even higher personal injury settlements is even greater. The British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA), one of the leading UK insurance bodies which issues periodic advice to its members, now recommends a minimum indemnity limit of £23m. But, with the legal environment continually evolving, Wilby recommends that serious consideration is given to purchasing liability limits of no less than £30m.
Searles' provides more than 800 holiday home and touring pitches, including luxury lodges to buy and rent, plus a raft of family-friendly attractions and outdoor activities. Attractions at Searles include an innovative new indoor ‘splash zone’ with a host of different water play features, a new outdoor gym, and an adventure play park plus nightly entertainment.The citation from the AA's award judges noted that Searles: “Never stands still, and every year offers something new to delight visitors seeking a truly memorable and high quality experience. "The park's success and popularity is thanks to the vision, passion and hard work of four generations of the Searle family, and their quest for ever-rising standards,” they continued.
National hot tub supplier Park Leisure Solutions has won the UK Pool & Spa Awards 2018 for Spa Product of the Year and Energy Efficient Product of the Year for its ground-breaking Climacube heat system. The arrival of the UK designed Climacube is set to revolutionise the commercial hot tub and spa industry, say creators, Park Leisure Solutions. In test results against current conventional heating systems the Climacube saved on average just under 60 per cent less time to heat up a Hot Tub and a massive 85.7 per cent reduction in energy cost, which is great news for both customers and the environment. With major UK Park Operators already using or ordering the energy effi cient design, saving them energy, time and money. Backed by a worldwide patent the Climacube works off a standard 13 amp power supply and can either be supplied from new or retro fitted to any contemporary hot tub or spa.Park Leisure Solutions, Managing Director, Stuart Mulcahy commented: “Our design offers the very latest energy saving heat technology, dramatically reducing running costs, reducing the carbon footprint and enables customers to use their hot tubs and spas all year round, at the desired temperature without the concern of cost.”
tablet erosion feeder, called SpaPodTM to make a highly effective combined, integrated hot tub water treatment system. The SaniStreamTM system offers a solution to the problem posed to holiday let owners and operators by Section 76 of health and safety guidelines, HSG282, which states that hot tubs installed in a setting where used ‘... as part of a business activity (eg in a holiday park rental unit or hotel bedroom(s) with their own dedicated spa, or as part of a rental agreement for a single family or group use)’ must be ‘disinfected using bromine or chlorine through the use of an inline disinfectant feeder’. The big issue with Sec. 76 of HSG282 is that few hot tubs sold on the UK market feature inline disinfectant feeders. Worse still, HSG282 made no legacy-exemption provision, meaning many thousands of hot tubs already in the fi eld became non-compliant overnight. Following much investment by Darlly Europe in R&D and fi eld-testing over the last eighteen months, the launch of the SaniStreamTM system at the Spatex 2019 expo heralds the solution to this issue. Heather Gilmore of Paith Holiday Cottages owns three holiday lets with hot tubs near Aberystwyth and sources the SaniStreamTM system from local supplier, Welsh Hot Tubs. Heather says: “The SaniStream gives me great peace of mind knowing my customers are in safe hygienic water conditions, and inspection and maintenance for us is easy and painless.”
The Camping and Caravanning Club will invest £7.5 million into its network of 106 UK Club Sites in the coming months, with large-scale capital works taking place at seven sites, including Wyeside near Rhyader in the Cambrian mountains of mid-Wales and West Runton on the north Norfolk coast. Money has been spent as part of the Club Sites investment programme which improves facilities for the future enjoyment of campers; both members of the Club and non-members. Proceeds raised by the Club through camping on Club Sites over the course of the year are invested into the site network annually as part of the programme. Bob Hill, Sites Director, said: “The site investment programme has been running in its current form since 2010 and in the last five years alone we’ve increased the number of hard-standings on our Club Sites by 7%, helping more members to enjoy camping year round – plenty to keep us busy.”