Holiday business adds to portfolio
Apr 7 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal
A NORTHUMBERLAND holiday business has acquired two more caravan parks boosting the value of its portfolio to more than £15m.
Family-run Northumbrian Leisure paid an undisclosed sum for the privately-owned caravan site at Glororum near Bamburgh from EA Dryden and Sons and the Sandhaven caravan park in South Shields from South Tyneside Borough Council.
It brings the number of sites owned by the business to four – it also has caravan parks at Warkworth and Cresswell in Northumberland.
The acquisitions mean that the firm, recently runner up in The Journal’s North East Business Awards small business category, is now one of the biggest privately-owned holiday park businesses in the region.
Managing director Nigel Thompson said: “This is a massive opportunity for us to grow the business. It’s a very exciting time for the company and the different areas we are moving into. The holiday park business brings jobs and added spend into the local economy.”
The business, run by Mr Thompson and his wife Sandra, has taken on two administration staff working from the group’s central hub of Golden Sands at Cresswell, where work started earlier this year on a controversial £5m expansion.
The development will add 350 static caravans and will take around five years to complete and is expected to create up to 40 jobs. In addition, Northumbrian Leisure is investing a further £500,000 to upgrade facilities across the four sites.
