The family holiday village a short car trip away loved by generations of Manchester kids
07.06.2023 - 05:33
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
If you grew up in Greater Manchester, there's a good chance you will have memories of being packed off to Center Parcs for a family holiday.
Center Parcs has more recently hit the headlines after putting up all six sites across the UK up for sale. But since the 1980s, families in the region have had the option of taking a short car journey to the holiday village in Nottinghamshire.
In 2001, another Center Parcs opened in Whinfell Forest in Cumbria, making the trip even more convenient for local families. The very first Center Parcs opened in Sherwood Forest - the home of Robin Hood - in Nottinghamshire in July 1987.
Offering a vast range of indoor and outdoor activities, the park's big selling point was its temperature controlled dome covering a sub tropical swimming paradise in the heart of the British countryside. Cars were only allowed to park up and depart at the site, but a fleet of 500 bicycles for hire also meant families could explore the village's 400 acres of woodland.
Although the first UK Center Parcs arrived in the late 1980s, the concept was born in Europe, having been founded in the Netherlands in 1968 by the owner of a sporting goods chain. The parks evolved from small tents populating a woodland campsite into villages of bungalows; soon the concept of the 'villa in the forest' was born.
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The revolutionary concept took Holland and Belgium by storm by offering countries with an unreliable climate similar to our own a chance to enjoy all-the-year-round subtropical temperatures despite what was happening with the weather outside.
This was thanks to the space-age temperature controlled dome, meaning holidaymakers could relax