New Business Of The Year: Jollydays Luxury Camping Ltd (From York Press)

New Business Of The Year: Jollydays Luxury Camping Ltd

1:01pm Tuesday 1st December 2009 in Winners By Ron Godfrey

This was a triumph for the new concept of “glamping”. That is, the art of putting the “glam into camping”. And Jollydays Luxury Camping Ltd, based at Village Farm, Scrayingham, near Stamford Bridge, offers precisely that.

It is marketing a swish tented lodge site, the first of which has been up and running in all weathers on 15 acres within 200 acres of woodland at Buttercrambe, near York.

Cock-a-hoop at the award are husband and wife team, Christian and Carolyn Van Outersterp, whose previous experience encompassed designing fireplaces and running a restaurant-bar in London.

Buttercrambe Wood has ten tents, but they now have planning consent for 30 more and they are super duper – each six metres by nine metres, with solid wooden floor, large wood-burning stove, hot running water, separate bathroom with vintage rolltop bath, hot showers, flushing loo plus kitchen area with gas cooking, and two separate bedrooms, one equipped with a four-poster.

A measure of the success of this sort of “boutique hotel in the woods” is that its campsite was fully booked throughout the summer and could have sold plots ten times over.

And the venture has had a positive effect on businesses around the area. For example, Jollydays employs a local laundry service to provide fresh linen for guests and offer mountain bikes for hire through a local firm.

A bit of advice from the judges to everyone: “Book now, because this business is booming.”

New Business Of The Year

Winner: Jollydays Luxury Camping Ltd

Finalists: Iccom Educational and Robot-Food