A regular finalist in the Top 100 Sites Guide the Quiet Site has become the first caravan park in Britain to win the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development, the highest official UK award for British businesses.
The Quiet Site in Watermillock near Penrith in Cumbria will be permitted to fly the Queen’s Award flag at the Quiet Site for the next five years.
Proud site owners Daniel and Anne Holder, who began the park 30 years ago as a camping field, said: “From the outset, we have always made sustainable tourism our main business priority, and it’s very humbling to have our efforts acknowledged in this way.
“We are surrounded by some of the world’s most amazing scenery, and it’s impossible not to feel a sense of responsibility for trying to preserve such a beautiful but fragile landscape.”
Last year, the park opened a ‘zero waste’ food shop specialising in Cumbrian produce free from unnecessary packaging. The shop was highlighted in the official Queen’s Award citation, along with a raft of other measures providing ‘green holidays’ for the park’s UK and overseas visitors. These include solar panels and biomass heating and the banning of single-use plastics.
The citation also commended the site’s 15 highly insulated and energy efficient underground ‘Hobbit Holes’ and concluded that The Quiet Site was wholly deserving of the prestigious royal award “because it is providing sustainability leadership in its industry”.
As well as its Hobbit Holes, the park offers camping pods, glamping cabins, holiday cottages, and tent and touring pitches with commanding views of Ullswater.
The Queen’s Award for Enterprise was established in 1965 to highlight Britain’s top performing companies, and the category for sustainable development was introduced in 1992.
We are surrounded by some of the world's most amazing scenery, and it's impossible not to feel a sense of responsibility for trying to preserve such a beautiful but fragile landscape
