Case Study – Coldingham Bay Leisure Park

            “Pinelog listened to the brief and got it spot on.” Karen Hampshire, General Manager, Coldingham Bay Leisure Park

As well as stunning timber lodges, Pinelog Ltd’s talents also extend to the design and build of beautiful and functional commercial timber buildings.

Our latest design can be seen at Coldingham Bay Leisure Park in Berwickshire.  Owner Verdant Leisure is a bespoke holiday park operator offering self-catering holidays and holiday home ownership across Scotland, Northumberland, Durham and Devon.

Verdant Leisure commissioned Pinelog to design and build a new clubhouse ready for fit-out and decoration, for the caravan and lodge holiday park.

The old clubhouse was destroyed by fire in 2021 and Verdant needed an ‘imaginative and purposeful’ replacement for owners and holiday guests to use.

Prior to the completion of the new clubhouse, Coldingham Bay was using a temporary marquee offering food and drinks, which was operational from April to the end of September.

The Brief

The clubhouse serves as a multi-functional area at the holiday park and is used by up to 200 people at a time.

With a budget agreed up front, as well as looking attractive the new clubhouse needed to fulfil the following functions:

• reception area
• sales office
• kitchen
• cellar
• bar
• storage
• toilets
• games room
• dining/bar area

Roger Langham RIBA, Pinelog’s Director and Architect said: “Verdant had a really good idea of what they needed. Their brief was very clear. It was just up to our team to inject some imagination into the design while ensuring the building was user friendly and on budget.”

The Design

With so many users and functions it was important to create a feeling of space.

To achieve this, Pinelog incorporated a double height vaulted ceiling in the main bar/restaurant area using exposed glulam timber trusses.

Glulam timber is a strong, attractive and versatile material, with a stylish contemporary look. As well as being functional, sustainable and low-carbon, the glulam trusses are a great way to make a statement in a building.

Inside, sliding glass doors allow plenty of light into the area and also serve the dual purpose of being able to extend the eating and drinking space onto an outdoor covered area.

“We purposely created a space that would give people a reason to want to spend time in and make them want to come back to,” explained Roger. 

Construction

Following agreement of the design and the necessary planning permissions being granted by Scottish Borders Council, the building went into production at our dedicated factory in Chesterfield.

During this time, Verdant organised clearance of the site and also arranged groundworks for the new building in-line with specifications supplied by us.

The 420sq m building was transported from our factory in panel format for assembly on site.

It was delivered as a watertight shell ready for plumbing, electrics and internal fit out by the client.

Assembly of the basic shell and frame on-site took just 8 weeks.

“Pinelog’s on-site team were absolutely marvellous. They were really mindful of the fact we are an operational holiday park and were very respectful while undertaking construction of the new clubhouse,” added Karen.

Time Frame

A total of 18 weeks, comprising of:

• 2 weeks factory build time
• 16 weeks for on-site construction + fit-out by Verdant-appointed contractors

The verdict

“The owners and holiday guests at Coldingham Bay are absolutely blown away by our new clubhouse,” commented Karen.

If you are a holiday park operator and looking to invest in UK designed and manufactured quality sustainable timber lodges, get in touch with us here or speak to Judy today on 01246 942842 to discuss how Pinelog can help you.