RPS’ Multidisciplinary Team’s Work Secures Best in Britain Award

Throughout the last year RPS has helped Darwin Escapes deliver a number of new, high-quality holiday parks all over England including the Hoseasons 2016 award-winning Beach Cove Coastal Retreat. Our landscape architectural, ecological, arboricultural and flood risk teams have supported a range of schemes through the planning process, construction stages and on to the park opening.

The holiday parks span England, with sites in Ilfracombe (Devon), near Keswick (Lake District), Isle of Wight, Canterbury (Kent), just outside Lyme Regis and Poole (both Dorset) recently opening to the public. The Beach Coast Coastal Retreat overlooking Hele Bay in Ilfracombe was voted one of the best in Britain by Hoseasons – winning the travel company’s Small Park Award 2016 and has a stunning location set on a steep cliff above a sandy cove. The park comprises a range of fully equipped nautical timber-clad beach homes and stylish modern apartments near to the Exmoor National Park. Our landscape architects designed a planting scheme which complimented the sites coastal location, with our ecologists addressing the issue of Japanese Knotweed which was found on the site.

All parks are located within stunning and unique environments therefore requiring careful consideration and design to sit best with the surrounding environment and ecological diversity. The Isle of Wight, Poole and Lyme Regis sites are close to a number of specially protected environmental areas including heathland, mudflats and salt marshes (AONBs, SACs, SSSI and RAMSAR sites) and the Keswick Reach Park sits within the Lake District National Park - a considerable area of breathtaking greenspace, mountainous landscape and freshwater lakes.

Our consultant teams developed bespoke designs for each park, creating a naturalistic setting to each location. This led to one site being planted with over 75,000 native trees and shrubs, and another being laid out with nearly three hectares of wildflower turf which was specifically grown for the project, that’s the same size as three football pitches!