Pontins

Pontins Holiday Parks

Trading name	Pontins
Type	Private Limited Company
Industry	Holiday / Leisure
Founded	1946 (1946)
Founder	Fred Pontin
Headquarters	St Helier, Jersey, CI (registered office) Ainsdale, Southport, Merseyside (trading office)
Number of locations	6 holiday parks in UK
Key people	Alex Langsam
Products	Family holiday parks
Number of employees	1,049
Website	pontins.com

Pontins is the trading name of Britannia Jinky Jersey Ltd, a company operating holiday parks in the UK. The original Pontins company was founded in 1946 by Fred Pontin.

Pontins specialises in offering half-board and self-catering holidays featuring regular entertainment at resorts, or "holiday parks", as they have branded them. Accommodation is usually in the form of chalets (which Pontins calls "apartments").

Founded

Fred Pontin opened his first holiday camp in 1946 on the site of a former U.S. army base (built during World War II), at Brean Sands near Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. He gradually expanded his empire to thirty sites,^[1] although the corporation has contracted since.

Company history

Balloon car 707, seen with an all over advert for Pontin's, at the Pleasure Beach, 5 August 1990

In 1978 the company was sold to Coral for £56 million. In 1980, Coral (including Pontins) was taken over by Bass Brewing, who sold Pontins in 1987 to a management buyout team led by Trevor Hemmings^[2] It was sold yet again in 1989, to Scottish & Newcastle.

Over the next ten years the company closed or sold off a number of sites. In a three-year programme in the mid-1990s, the remaining camps were modernised. By 2000, the company was operating only eight camps, and was sold back to Hemmings. In 2008, the company was sold to Ocean Parcs for £46 million.^[3] Wall Park holiday centre was not included in the sale. In January 2009, Pontins announced the closure of its Hemsby holiday centre.^[4] Pontins Blackpool in Squires Gate closed in October 2009^[5] leaving five parks still trading under the Pontins brand.

Pontins headquarters were relocated to the Southport Holiday Park, at Ainsdale-on-Sea, close to the village of Ainsdale. From the original Hemmings buy-out until then the headquarters were located at Sagar House in the village of Eccleston, Lancashire.

In September 2009, Pontins announced a five-year multi-million investment plan for the remaining five parks. Refurbishment work completed in 2010 included a new half-board restaurant and ice skating rink at the Prestatyn Sands Holiday Park, and a new roller skating rink at the Brean Sands Holiday Park.

In 2014, the former Pontins resort at Sand Bay was purchased by the group and it thus became the sixth resort to be operated under the 'new Pontins' brand.

Financial realignment

In November 2010, Pontins announced that they had gone into administration. No jobs were lost and customers were still able to take the holidays they had booked. A company spokesman said that Pontins would continue to trade for the time being, and that it would be getting help to move the company out of administration.^[6]

On 28 January 2011 Britannia Hotels Group bought Pontins Holidays. Alex Langsam, owner of Britannia Hotels, soon announced a £25 million investment programme, with the intention of refocusing Pontins as themed seaside destinations, taking inspiration from Disney theme parks.^[1]

Pontins "Bluecoats"

Bluecoats are guest hosts and include some well-known entertainers. Past Bluecoats include TV personalities Brian Conley, Shane Richie, Helen Chamberlain, Bobby Davro, Lee Carroll, Mark Fez Harrison of " Magicians in love " Scott Bruton (X Factor finalist), and Bradley Walsh. Other personalities include dancer Lisa Scott-Lee, stand-up comedian Lee Mack, and opera singer Nyle Wolfe.

Current resorts

Sign at Pontin's holiday camp in Prestatyn.

Pontins currently owns and operates six "holiday parks" in the United Kingdom:

• Camber Sands (in East Sussex)
• Southport (in Ainsdale, Merseyside)
• Prestatyn Sands (in Denbighshire, North Wales)
• Brean Sands (between Burnham-on-Sea and Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset)
• Pakefield (in Lowestoft, Suffolk)
• Sand Bay (in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset), an adult-only park

Southport

Pontins Southport is a holiday park located on Shore Road, Ainsdale, and was opened in 1969 by Fred Pontin at a cost of £2.5 million. The layout is similar to a village. It contains entertainment facilities, leisure facilities and on-site guest "apartments" in the form of 768 chalets. Apartments include a living area, kitchen and up to two bedrooms. Guests can choose either Self-Catering or Half-Board option. Pontins Southport hosts the annual Miss Southport contest.

The Pontins Bungalow in the park was renovated in 2013 and is set close to all the venues at the Pontins resort.

Sand Bay

The former Pontins site at Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, had been sold in 1999 and subsequently closed by the owners in 2013. It was then purchased by Britannia Hotels in 2014 and brought back under the Pontin brand. It is now designated as an adult-only resort.

Former and closed resorts

This is a list of some former Pontins resorts in both Ireland and the United Kingdom that have either closed or been sold off:

In popular culture

• The 1973 British film Holiday On The Buses was filmed at and set in the Prestatyn resort. A plaque was erected in 2004 at the main entrance gates (unchanged since the film) to note this event.^[9] The same venue hosts professional snooker each year. Prestatyn Sands also hosts the finals for the annual Brass Band Festival^[10] historically, the qualifying rounds were held in other Pontins centres.
• Carol Lee Scott (known as "Grotbags") performed cabaret throughout different Pontins sites in the 1960s and 70s.

References

Further reading

• The book Fred Pontin...the man and his business was written by Peter Willsher and is considered to be a comprehensive history of Sir Fred Pontin and the business he created after World War II.

External links

• Official website