Hook Farm is situated in an Area of National Beauty and we run the site both to minimise our impact on the environment and to create habitats that encourage as much wildlife as possible. We are passionate on making the site look as natural as possible and actively manage areas to encourage wildlife.
Below we list some of the things we do and encourage our customers to do to minimise our environmental footprint
We have three solar electric arrays on site that generate electricity for the site which we primarily use to heat water for our shower blocks. We also charge our electric golf buggy which we use for pitching from this source as well
We also have a solar thermal array that also helps to heat our hot water
We actively manage two nature reserve areas. One was planted as a wildflower meadow in 2019 and is still establishing. The other is an area alongside a waterway that runs along the side of the site where we actively managing around 0.5 acre of wild woodland. To protect these areas both of them are out of bounds to our customers but they are visible from different parts of our site.
To minimise the use of chemical lawn fertilisers we either mulch or compost all of our grass cuttings
All wood we cut to manage our trees is either logged and used for our domestic log burner or chipped and used as a mulch
We have recycling bins and glass recycling bins around the site and actively sort our general waste bins daily to minimise the amount of recyclable waste taken away in general waste. We ask and encourage our customers to minimise this happening by sorting their waste at the time of disposal. In 2020 we estimate that c50% by volume of our waste created during the season was put into recycling. We work each year with the help of our customers to increase this percentage each year.
For the 2022 season we have installed a spring water collection and treatment plant to our refurbished lower toilet block which will materially reduce our mains water usage we have also installed additional solar electric panels to help heat more water
We leave many of our terrace banks uncut during the season to encourage wild flowers and grasses which attract insects and birds. We ask that guests do not walk down the banks to help protect the plants growing in them
We ask for customers to turn off their vehicle engines during the check in and not to run car engines on pitches.
We are passionate on all environmental issues and look to improve each year. We welcome all comments and feedback from our customers of what we can do to continue to improve.