The owners of a holiday park say they will keep on striving to be more sustainable after winning multiple awards for their work to cut their carbon footprint and increase biodiversity.

Park Cliffe started life as a small farm-based camping site in 1990. 
Today, it covers 25 acres of open countryside and woodland above the eastern shores of Windermere. 
Susan and Derek Dickson bought the site in 2007 and have been putting their focus on reducing its carbon footprint and making the business as sustainable as possible.
Last year their efforts were recognised when they won the Green/Sustainable Business of the Year Award at the in-Cumbria Business Awards (as well as picking up the Family Business of the Year Award).
They have also held the David Bellamy Gold Conservation Award for the last 16 years in a row and planted over 400 trees as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy Project to mark the late monarch’s Platinum Jubilee.
Susan already worked in the holiday park industry before moving to Park Cliffe, with Derek working as a transmission engineer for Electricity North West.
They run the site alongside their son Jack and daughter Abi.
Derek says his background in electrical engineering has come in useful when making decisions around installing alternative sources of energy at the site.
"I could look at what we were trying to achieve at Park Cliffe and realise that we needed quite a lot of solar generation to make a big difference,” he says.
"One of the real challenges is that we all use quite a lot of energy, like it or not, and the green options can produce large volumes of energy, but not at the same scale as you get with fossil fuels.
"The philosophy has got to be to try and find ways of reducing what you use in the first place.”
As well as measures such as installing LED lighting, lighting sensors in bathrooms and electrical vehicle charging points, Park Cliffe is committed to obtaining 100 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.

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In March last year they commissioned a 100kw array of 213 solar panels on part of their camping field, as well as 90kwh of battery storage.
They have also planted a willow hedge around the boundary to the field and a carpet of wildflowers.
Other actions include promoting their sustainable actions on their website and encouraging guests to take action such as recycling, conserving water and protecting wildlife.
They also maintain the environment to encourage wildflowers, insects and animals.
The park opened an ethical shop in March last year, selling sustainable and local products, and has banned the use of single use plastics, including removing drinks in plastic bottles from sale.
The Dicksons were also early adopters of electric vehicles, using an Italian-made electric Alke utility vehicle for jobs around the park.
For the future Susan and Derek are focused on continuing their sustainability mission, including by looking into more ways to move away from fossil fuel power, expanding the range of products in the ethical shop and continuing to communicate the message to guests via social media, their website and newsletter.
“I think in the past what we’re doing would have been a bit more niche but it’s certainly more mainstream now,” says Susan.
“When people come in they are really interested and often it’s the kids that are more interested in some things. It’s the kids that learn about things like recycling at school and you see them telling their parents which bin to put things in.”
They are also investigating alternatives to gas to heat the park’s water, potentially by digging boreholes to power ground source heat pumps.
"I think it's going to be a never-ending task really," says Derek.
"We really want to concentrate on getting the right solutions with the right advice."
Above all, they say they will continue to make decisions which benefit both their guests and the park.
“We see more and more family-run holiday parks being sold to large companies or groups so we’re particularly proud to continue to be family owned and run and offer a quality, personal service,” says Derek. 
“It enables us to drive up standards and keep our quality exceptionally high.  We don’t have to report to shareholders and we can make quality investments which benefit our guests using a more philanthropic approach without being solely profit led.”