Center Parcs UK and Ireland (formerly Center Parcs UK) is a short-break holiday company that operates six holiday villages in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with each covering about of woodland. The company's first village opened near to Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, in 1987 and its sixth, at Longford Forest, Ireland, opened in 2019.
A similar enterprise, Center Parcs Europe, operates in continental Europe; the two companies have been separately owned since 2001.
History
Beginnings
In 1968, Dutch entrepreneur Piet Derksen purchased woodland near Reuver so that staff and customers of his 17 store sporting goods chain could relax in small tents. The park, De Lommerbergen was successful and tents were quickly replaced by bungalows or chalets.
In July 1987, Center Parcs opened its first UK resort named Center Parcs Sherwood Forest, in North Nottinghamshire."Center Parcs marks a 25-year milestone". Chad, 11 July 2012, p.31. Accessed 23 February 2026 At that time, "Center Parcs" (under that name, with no regional qualifier) was a single global company owning both British and continental European resorts. In 1989 it opened its second village in the UK at Elveden Forest. Center Parcs (including the Sherwood Forest and Elveden Forest villages) was bought in 1989 by (the now defunct) Scottish & Newcastle. In 1994 it opened its third village in the UK, Longleat Forest, located west and southwest from the first two and near Longleat Adventure & Safari Park.
Independence After acquiring the Whinfell Forest village, formerly Oasis Lakeland Holiday Village, and during a move in 2001 to concentrate on their core brewing business, Scottish and Newcastle sold the UK side of Center Parcs to venture capitalists Deutsche Bank Capital Partners, and it became a separate company known then as Center Parcs UK.The remainder of Center Parcs continued to operate, becoming known as Center Parcs Europe. The two companies have since operated under very similar branding, but are now owned and operated by two distinct companies. (In 2003 S&N sold Center Parcs Europe to a joint venture of France-based Pierre & Vacances (P&V), who already owned the competing Gran Dorado Resorts, and German investment group DBCP, hence completing the divesting of Center Parcs from the restructured S&N.)
In December 2003, Mid Ocean agreed to sell the UK resorts to Arbor Ltd for £285 million, a special vehicle set up to float Center Parcs UK on London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market, and in 2005 it moved to the main stock market listing.
In May 2006 Center Parcs UK Group PLC was sold to The Blackstone Group for a reported £1.1 billion. In June 2015, it was announced that Blackstone had agreed to sell the company to Canadian-based Brookfield Properties for £2.4bn. At the time Center Parcs UK employed around 7,500 people and received around 2 million guests in 2015.
Locations Center Parcs has short-break holiday villages in five locations in the UK, with a sixth in Ireland which opened in 2019. Each village covers around of woodland, with a standard set of facilities, and have around 97% occupancy annually.
Country Resort Nearest city or town Nearest motorway/highway junctions County Year opened Notes Sherwood Forest Mansfield, Newark-on-Trent and Worksop J27, 28 & 29 Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire & South Yorkshire Nottinghamshire 1987First site opened outside continental Europe and first site off the M1 motorway. Elveden Forest Brandon, Elveden and Thetford J8, 9, 9A & 10 Essex & Cambridgeshire Suffolk 1989Closed between 2002 and 2003 following a major fire. Longleat Forest Warminster and Frome J17 & 18 Wiltshire, North East Somerset & South Gloucestershire Wiltshire 1994The only site to have a land train service, originally using Land Rovers. Whinfell Forest Carlisle and Penrith J39, 40 & 41 Lancashire & Cumbria Cumbria 2001Opened in 1997 but operated by The Rank Group as Oasis Forest Holiday Villages. Woburn Forest Ampthill, Flitwick and Woburn Sands J12 & 13 Bedfordshire Bedfordshire 2014The most recent village to open in the UK and second site off the M1 motorway. Longford Forest Ballymahon Goldsmith Way Turnoff County Longford 2019First site opened outside the UK.
Sherwood Forest
The first Center Parcs holiday village in the United Kingdom was opened in July 1987. It is located in of woodland near Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. The site was formerly owned by the Forestry Commission, and was chosen as it was "pretty central [in the UK], it had the right maturity of trees and was in an area affected by the demise of the coal industry".
By 2012 it was receiving around 400,000 visitors annually, mostly from outside of Nottinghamshire. It can have around 4,000 visitors at any one time. The occupancy rate was over 90% in the first 30 years of operation.
A £3 million refurbishment of the Aqua Sana spa finished in April 2017, and a £15 million refurbishment of the Subtropical Swimming Paradise swimming facilities at the village started in September 2017. The village employs 1,500 people, of which around 700 are housekeepers.
The site originally had 609 lodges, which increased to 900 by the end of 2017. It has a mixture of Woodland Lodges, New Woodland Lodges, Executive Duplex Lodges, Penthouse Duplex Lodge, Executive Apartment, Executive Lodge, New Executive Lodge, and Treehouses, with between one and four bedrooms in each. Three luxury Treehouses were opened in 2010, each with four bedrooms. A six-bedroom Woodland Lodge was opened in 2017, along with 27 other woodland lodges.
There is a watersports lake near the Village Square, where craft hired from the Boathouse may be used.
Elveden Forest
Two years later, in 1989, a second village was added, at Elveden Forest. It makes up a small area of Thetford Forest west of the B1106 road and near the town of Brandon in Suffolk, England. It is named after the nearby village of Elveden.
Just before 10am on 4 April 2002 a major fire destroyed the central Plaza and sports centre of Elveden Forest. One member of staff was treated for smoke inhalation, but there were no serious injuries. The fire also destroyed seven bars and restaurants, a disco, some gift shops, a sports centre and a bowling alley. The damage to the forest was minimal. A subsequent inquiry found that the blaze was caused by contractors carrying out repair work on the roof of a catering block adjacent to the Plaza.
Elveden Forest re-opened in July 2003 after a major re-design, less susceptible to the potential spread of fire. The most dramatic difference was to the village square which was rebuilt with an open-air Mediterranean theme. The sub-tropical swimming paradise re-opened having survived the blaze; the sauna complex was changed to a Balinese theme, and a new Sports Plaza was opened. Whilst it was closed, the rest of the village was also improved including the refurbishment of the country club and the addition of a spa and new three- and four-bedroom lodges.
Elveden Forest has a total of 866 units of accommodation which range from 'Woodland' grade to exclusive villas and include rooms at the Lakeview Hotel. These villas and rooms can accommodate up to 4,216 guests. Villas are located in six different areas with each area mostly including every type of accommodation, but the Ash and Oak areas are predominantly made up of executive and exclusive villas. Ash was extended in 2007 to include new four-bedroom two-storey villas.
Longleat Forest
The third village opened in 1994. It makes up a large area of Longleat Forest in the county of Wiltshire, England, and is co-located on the site of Longleat Safari Park nearby, approximately east of Frome, Somerset, under 20 miles northwest of Shaftesbury, Dorset and a few miles west of Warminster. This village has fewer lodges than Elveden Forest and Sherwood Forest due to the steep topography of the site.
Whinfell Forest
In 1997, The Rank Organisation started a new company under the name of Oasis Forest Holidays Villages and opened a 'Centre Parcs' style holiday village in Whinfell Forest near Penrith, Cumbria, under the name Oasis Lakeland Holiday Village, which featured commercial restaurants and businesses such as Burger King and a Hard Rock Cafe. Bought by Center Parcs UK in 2001, who removed the commercial ventures, the site was rebranded as Center Parcs Oasis Whinfell Forest, before 'Oasis' was dropped from the name in 2006. The set up at Whinfell is slightly different in that the style of accommodation is more akin to two-storey Scandinavian-style lodges, the main centre of the village is under cover, and there is no country club like at Longleat Forest, Elveden Forest and Sherwood Forest. Center Parcs have updated many Whinfell Forest lodges, and added new lodges of an identical style at their other UK villages.
Whinfell Forest is the largest of Center Parcs' five UK holiday villages, with accommodation for 4,668 people in 861 units.
Woburn Forest
Center Parcs Woburn Forest is located on the outskirts of Flitwick and Ampthill, from the village of Woburn in Bedfordshire in the UK. It commenced operation in July 2014 and hence it became the second Center Parcs resort off of the M1 motorway (the first being Center Parcs Sherwood Forest).
The chief executive, Martin Dalby, said that the company might add a fifth village. In December 2004, Center Parcs UK announced that it had identified a location named Warren Wood near Flitwick at Woburn, Bedfordshire. Despite the land being designated as greenbelt, the company sought planning permission and had already completed the signing of a lease on the land from its owner, the Duke of Bedford. The project was expected to cost approximately £160 million, including the construction of accommodation, indoor and outdoor facilities, the sub-tropical swimming complex, restaurants and a spa, but this has since risen to £230m. It was anticipated that, given planning permission, the project would take between three and four years to complete.To commemorate Dalby's love of the United Kingdom, each room in Woburn Center Parcs celebrates the nature of the different countries, either with a plant canvas of either a daffodil, thistle, rose or shamrock, or with a four part collage.BBC article from September 2007 detailing the granting of planning permission
In July 2006, Bedfordshire District Council turned down Center Parcs' application for planning approval on the grounds that the project breached policy safeguarding Metropolitan Green Belt land, leading the company to lodge an appeal against the decision later that year. The inspector hearing the appeal recommended that the Council's decision be upheld. In September 2007 the council's decision was overturned by the government as Secretary of State Hazel Blears overruled the inspector's advice. She acknowledged that the scheme breached both local and national policies on safeguarding Green Belt, but argued that "in this particular case, the economic and employment benefits of the proposal, when taken together with the ecological and biodiversity benefits... constitute very special circumstances and are sufficient to clearly outweigh the harm to Green Belt", and granted outline planning permission. In November 2010 Center Parcs gained full approval for the plans of the village including designs of facilities, restaurants, shops and accommodation and in 2012 secured £250 million of investment to build the new resort, to be known as Woburn Forest.