Our New Holiday Lodge

It was a sunny day at the end of March and a special mission was underway. Our Persona Your Voice committee had been talking about the importance of having a holiday every now and again and the additional challenges that exist for people with support needs, particularly mobility needs, in finding good quality holiday accommodation at an affordable price.

They’d had an idea that it would be great if Persona could support them to find a solution and so one day they went off to check out some possible options. Matthew, Gill, and Chayim agreed to go on a road trip to find a holiday park that they thought could work for people with additional needs. 

Mo Arthur (left) and Donna Bent (right) were their glamorous chauffeurs and assistants for the day. 

The team visited two holiday parks in Lancashire which had been shortlisted using the criteria they had determined. They were honest in their assessment and returned with a recommendation to purchase a 3 bed luxury lodge at Lakeside in Carnforth.

Lakeside Park comprises a range of luxury lodges situated as you would expect – around a lake! It’s about an hour away from Bury and has a restaurant on site plus a gym, swimming pool and a spa. The team felt that the facilities, location and atmosphere were just right to provide a fabulous holiday destination with lots of choice about how active or relaxing each person wanted to be. The feedback from the group was used alongside a business case and the Persona Board took the decision to go ahead and purchase a lodge.

The work of Persona Your Voice doesn’t stop there though; as we are purchasing a brand new bespoke lodge, Gill, Matthew and Chayim are going to take a lead on working with the builders to design a lodge that meets the needs of people we support. We expect our luxury lodge to be available for bookings in 2024.

This is a real example of people we support leading the way in designing solutions that improve lives.

To read more about co-production, click here.