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.
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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 in simulated sunshine with a drink or snack from the poolside bar. The idyllic indoor paradise was also adorned with exotic plants and trees, rock formations, waterfalls and whirlpools.
For kids, big and small, there was endless fun to be had on the water chutes, wild water rapids and slides. Other attractions the newly opened holiday park offered included a wide range of sports facilities - both inside and outside - as well as theme restaurants, a shopping complex, health and beauty treatment areas and centres for children to play.
So why break with tradition of holiday camps like Butlins and Pontins and create a holiday park so far from the sea? One of the major reasons Center Parcs chose Sherwood Forest was because it was well away from the coast.
"It is psychological," the company was quoted as saying in the Birmingham Evening Mail six-months before it opened. "If you sell seaside holidays people tend to think of summer. We want to get away from that to get people to come at any time."
The anticipation of experiencing a holiday with reliable weather in the UK grew as the opening of the Nottinghamshire Center Parcs neared. Switchboards were swamped as thousands of people, eager to secure one if its 600 villas among the trees, pre-booked their holiday months before it opened.
The opening of the all-weather holiday getaway proved an astonishing success. This was contrary to the difficulties experienced by other British holiday resorts at the price of a holiday abroad, with guaranteed sunshine, became ever more affordable.
Click below for a fascinating gallery of images of the UK's first Center Parcs just after it opened
Inland Nottinghamshire proved ideally suited location for allowing people to enjoy a holiday with good weather all-year-round. This was helped by having 10 million people living a short drive from its location, alongside good road links and an unspoiled setting.
The ne and vast holiday village, with its space-age dome, also offered a more upmarket experience, away from the knobbly knees and candyfloss image of a traditional holiday in a British resort. So-much-so, the English Tourist Board was quoted in the Nottingham Evening Post as saying the new Center Parcs offered "the most important innovation in British tourism since the war."
With the success of the Nottinghamshire park, more UK Center Parcs followed a few years later in Suffolk and Wiltshire. The Cumbria park near Penrith opened in 1997 but was originally operated by The Rank Organisation under the name Oasis Lakeland Holiday Village, before becoming a Center Parcs in 2001.
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The two latest Center Parcs opened in Bedfordshire in 2014, and most recently in County Longford in Ireland in 2019. During the pandemic, the company suffered losses of £110 million, but has seen its fortunes turn around along with the increased interest in 'staycations', with profits returning to £172 million last year.
Do family holidays at Center Parcs awaken any memories for you? Let us know in the comments section below.
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