Dawlish swimming pool up for national Award

They need your support!

Cofton Holidays, based near Dawlish Warren, has been shortlisted in the 2019 UK Pool and Spa Awards, having achieved a 5-star rating earlier this year.

The family-run business has made it down to the last three in the Holiday Park Pool of the Year Award, part of the Public/Commercial Pool Awards category. Open to businesses across the UK, the awards celebrate the very best in the water leisure industry. The public vote is now open and Cofton is calling on fans to support it in its bid to beat pools from Butlins in Bognor Regis and Plas Coch Coastal and Country Retreat in Wales. All finalists will be kept in suspense until 12^th December when they will learn whether they have won at a glittering ceremony hosted in Birmingham. 

The achievement follows the news that Cofton has been awarded VisitEngland’s highest standard for quality, the prestigious 5-star holiday park rating. It is the only holiday park in the Dawlish area to hold VisitEngland’s top quality mark.  

Nestled in a beautiful corner of South Devon countryside, Cofton Holidays welcomes over 65,000 visitors each year who use its facilities, including the indoor and outdoor swimming pools. 

Opened in July 2012, the indoor pool is heated to 30 degrees and welcomes everyone from adults to babies. A range of sessions are hosted for visitors throughout the year including adult only swim sessions, soft play sessions, Aquajet experiences, swimming parties, one-to-one swimming lessons and lessons for babies and toddlers. The popular pool is complete with hydrotherapy loungers, bubbling water jets and a splash pad area. The pool itself has a low impact ‘memory gel’ style base which aids grip, making it perfect for Aqua Aerobics. 

The UK Pool and Spa Awards has also recognised Cofton’s seasonal outdoor pool as a contender in the competition. Open from 24^th May to 14^th September, this pool is predominantly used by sun seekers who can soak up the Devon sunshine on the large green spaces that surround the pool. This year, Cofton hosted Mermaid and Shark lessons in its outdoor pool for the first time, run by the holiday park’s very own Fin2Fit Mermaid Instructor. 

Experiencing a high-level of success throughout 2019, Helen Scott, Director of Cofton Holidays, is delighted with this recent achievement: 

“Having been shortlisted in this year’s Pool and Spa Awards, only a few weeks after being announced as a 5-star graded holiday park, is a huge honour for us. We’ve invested a great deal in our two popular swimming pools, and we are delighted that this has been recognised once again. 

“One of the aspects we are particularly proud of is our £1/2million state-of-the-art biomass hub that provides heat and hot water to our indoor pool as well as our leisure and dining complex. One of the largest of its kind in Devon, it produces on average 1.9 million kWh of energy that constantly charges our thermal stores of hot water. It’s a great sustainable initiative for us.

“The public vote is now open and we’re up against two much larger operators. We would love to encourage our fans, guests and day visitors to vote for us through the UK Pool and Spa Awards website so that we can fly the flag for Devon. We’d like to thank all of our visitors for their support and loyalty as without them, we wouldn’t be celebrating such great achievements like this one.”