Family Business Week

From the very beginning the Shorefield ethos has been centred around families, when the late Dr Robert Pollock was unable to find a touring pitch for the family’s annual holiday, he purchased a small caravan park next to a worked-out gravel pit at Milford on Sea, and so the company was born.

What started as a small family holiday has now bloomed into a bustling business with Dr Pollock’s children, Lesley, Sara and Simon at the helm, taking the business from strength to strength and now boasting eight parks. All of our stunning eight parks are situated along the beautiful South Coast, within Hampshire and Dorset.

Shorefield Holidays are proud members of The Institute for Family Business and believe family businesses are the bedrock of our communities, and backbone of our economy. This week the IFB and businesses all over the country are celebrating Family Business Week, a celebration of family businesses as a force for good.

Family businesses are often overlooked, and the scale of their impact on our lives is underestimated. Family Business Week is a campaign designed to ensure family firms get the recognition they deserve, and to celebrate their amazing work.

Building Memories and Preserving Habitats

Shorefield Holidays was formed in 1958 by the late Dr Robert Pollock and for the first eighteen years, the business was run by Dr Pollock as a side-line to his main career as a General Practitioner in Bedford. He would drive the 260 mile roundtrip every Wednesday just to visit the park. His evenings were spent paying the bills and collecting the site fees. When he retired from medicine, Dr Pollock moved to Milford and spent many hours listening attentively to his customers and staff, whilst walking the park with his dog, a Great Dane named Troy.

Dr Pollock’s children, Lesley (Marketing Director), Sara (Finance Director) and Simon (Chairman and Managing Director) joined the business in the 1970s bringing with them new skills, but the same passion for a great customer experience. The family-run company has gone from strength to strength and now has eight parks all situated within Hampshire and Dorset in its portfolio. As well as the directors of the business being family, there is a number of staff that are family members, including husband/wife and mother/son duos.

The preservation of the local natural environment – a place of natural beauty that the Doc originally fell in love with, and that holds many happy family memories has always been of critical, unwavering importance to the family. To this end, they have embedded a number of environmental and sustainable initiatives into their business model, to ensure the environment is equally protected and respected.

Food sold on-site is locally and sustainably sourced as much as possible, with produce bought from nearby farms, butchers and dairies. Grass is left uncut in many areas so that bees and other pollinators can make themselves at home. Shorefield sites have cycle-friendly facilities and electric vehicle charging points for guests and staff.

Shorefield’s initiatives also extend into the community. They organise regular litter picks, beach cleans and forest clean-ups locally. They support local charities, donate food to local food banks and for the past 40 years they’ve offered prizes for school raffles near to the parks including Milford Primary School, Hordle School and Tiptoe Primary School.

"Supporting Oakhaven Hospice as the charity of the year has been a pleasure and a real drive for us to get out and fundraise as much as we can for such a great cause. Through multiple activities and the readiness of our staff and guests, we have managed to directly raise over £8,000 so far and we've still got more to come."

Shorefield has recently been awarded a Silver Accreditation in the newly launched New Forest Green Leaf Tourism Business Scheme which celebrates local businesses putting the planet first.

Marketing Director at Shorefield, Lesley Lawrence, said: “Hard work, trust, honesty and innovation has been key to our success, but engaging with the community and protecting our surrounding environment is also really important to us. Whether it’s expanding our apprentice scheme to assist with job creation, instigating beach clean ups or partnering with local charities, we want Shorefield to support the community livelihood whilst preserving the glorious natural landscapes here.”

Shorefield Holidays are an IFB member and take pride, and care of their place in the world.