Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The Center of excellence
First look at £246m holiday village set to open next summer
Only one facility will allow day visitors – and that’s the spa MARTIN DALBY CENTER PARCS CHIEF YESTERDAY
A HUGE rural holiday village that will accommodate more than 2,500 people is set to open next summer.
The Irish Mirror was yesterday given access to the 395-acre Center Parcs Forest site in Newcastle Wood, near Ballymahon in Co Longford, for a first look.
The starting price for a lodge in the new holiday facility will be around £260 for two people during an off-peak weekend.
The site, which is currently midconstruction, will feature a water park, a cycling centre and a range of activities such as zip-lining and canoeing.
Visitors will be able to avail of all the activities throughout their stay but they will not be included in the accommodation cost.
And most of the facilities will only be available to those staying at the site.
Center Parcs chief Martin Dalby told the Irish Mirror: “There is only one facility that allows day visitors and that’s the spa.
“Everything else you would have to be here on holiday to take advantage of.” The lodges will also be self-catered, so the accommodation cost will not be reflective of food services.
However, a supermarket will be available on site for people looking to make their own meals.
Recruitment for staff will start in the new year with more than
1,000 positions set to be filled. The jobs available will range from management staff to cleaners, lifeguards and caterers with qualifications of various degrees.
Regarding bookings, Mr Dalby said the company will start taking reservations from January onwards.
He added: “It’s a short-break holiday, so we’ll sell it Friday through Monday – which is a long weekend – or we’ll sell it Monday through to Friday for a midweek stay.”
The site will be home to 466 lodges and 30 apartments of various sizes.
None of the buildings have been completed yet and the area remains heavily occupied by ongoing construction.
Work began in January, but Mr Dalby said the progress made in the past five months has been astonishing.
Regarding local concerns, he added the project had two minor complaints which were “fairly easily dismissed”.
Mr Dalby said: “We had one from someone who lived 25 minutes away and was worried about the traffic and another from someone who was worried about the trees being cut down.”
He added the site was built on a timber plantation and the company worked with ground rangers to ensure all wildlife was preserved.
The project is costing £246million and is is set to be completed in summer 2019 in time for the peak season.