Pontins facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Pontins Holiday Parks

Entrance to Brean Sands camp
Trade name	Pontins
Type	Private limited company
Industry	Holiday / Leisure
Founded	1946 (1946)
Founder	Fred Pontin
Headquarters	St Helier, Jersey (registered office) Hale, Greater Manchester, England (contact address)
Number of locations	2 (2024)
Products	Family holiday parks
Owner	Britannia Hotels
Number of employees	715

Pontins is a British company that runs holiday parks in the UK. It was started in 1946 by Fred Pontin. In 2011, another company called Britannia Hotels bought Pontins.

Pontins holiday parks offer places to stay where you can either cook for yourself (self-catering) or have some meals provided (half-board). They also have entertainment for guests. The places you stay are usually called "apartments" by Pontins, which are like small cabins.

In 2022, a survey by a group called Which? rated Pontins as the lowest-ranked holiday park chain among 19 others in Britain.

As of April 2024, two of the remaining Pontins resorts, Brean Sands and Pakefield, were temporarily closed to the public. They were being used to house construction workers for large projects nearby.

History of Pontins Holiday Parks

Brean Sands holiday park in 2008

Fred Pontin opened his very first holiday camp in 1946. It was built on the site of an old U.S. army base from World War II. This first camp was at Brean Sands near Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. It cost £23,000 to set up. Fred Pontin created a group to own the camp, and he controlled half of it. Within just one year, he had six camps. Over time, he bought more camps and managed them himself for a year before selling them to his group. He slowly grew his business to include thirty locations.

Entrance to Camber Sands camp in 2017, a few years before it closed

Pontins camps were usually smaller and less expensive than Butlin's holiday camps. Pontins had their own entertainers called Bluecoats, similar to Butlin's Redcoats. Some famous Bluecoats included Stu Francis, Shane Richie, Bobby Davro, Bradley Walsh, Nick Wilton, Lee Mack, and Carol Lee Scott (who later played a character called "Grotbags").

In 1978, the Pontins company was sold to Coral for £56 million. Then, in 1980, Bass Brewing took over Coral, which included Pontins. Bass Brewing sold Pontins in 1987 to a team of managers led by Trevor Hemmings. It was sold again in 1989 to Scottish & Newcastle.

Play equipment at the former Camber Sands camp in 2017

Over the next ten years, Pontins closed or sold many of its locations. In the mid-1990s, the remaining camps were updated over three years. By 2000, the company had only eight camps left and was sold back to Trevor Hemmings. In 2008, Ocean Parcs bought the company for £46 million. One holiday center, Wall Park, was not included in this sale.

In January 2009, Pontins announced that its Hemsby holiday center would close. Pontins Blackpool in Squires Gate closed in October 2009. It was later torn down after a property developer bought the land, leaving only five parks still open under the Pontins name.

Pontins moved its main office to the Southport Holiday Park in Ainsdale, Southport. Before this, the main office had been at Sagar House in the village of Eccleston, Lancashire since the Hemmings buyout.

Wick Ferry Pontins camp in 1971

In September 2009, Pontins announced a big plan to invest millions of pounds over five years in its remaining five parks. By 2010, some updates were finished. These included a new restaurant and an ice skating rink at Prestatyn Sands Holiday Park. Brean Sands Holiday Park got a new roller skating rink. There were also plans to rebuild the Camber Sands and Southport Holiday Parks and make the Pakefield Holiday Park twice as big.

In November 2010, Pontins faced financial difficulties. In January 2011, Britannia Hotels bought the company. In 2014, Britannia Hotels also bought the former Pontins resort at Sand Bay. This became the sixth resort to be run under the new Pontins brand.

On November 30, 2023, Britannia Hotels, which owns Pontins, suddenly closed the parks at Prestatyn and Camber Sands. This affected many people who had booked holidays for Christmas. On January 3, 2024, the Southport park also closed suddenly because of severe flooding from Storm Henk.

Fairness and Discrimination Concerns

In March 2021, a person who used to work for Pontins shared a document with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). This document listed common Irish surnames and said that people with these names were "undesirable guests" and should not be allowed to book. This was done to unfairly refuse bookings from Romani and Irish Travellers based on their names or accents.

The EHRC investigated this practice and found that Pontins was "directly discriminating on the basis of race." This means they were treating people unfairly because of their background, which broke the Equality Act 2010 law. The Britannia Hotel Group, which owns Pontins, made a legal agreement with the EHRC. They agreed to investigate and stop this unfair practice, and to change their rules and systems to prevent it from happening again.

Current Pontins Resorts

As of January 2024, Pontins operates the following resorts:

• Brean Sands, Burnham on Sea, Somerset (This park is closed to guests from January 2023 until 2026. It is housing workers who are building the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.)
• Pakefield, Suffolk (This park is for adults only. It is closed to guests from January 2025 to house workers building the Sizewell C nuclear power station.)
• Sand Bay - Weston Super Mare. This is the last park still open to guests. It is for adults only. While it is still called a Pontins, most signs now say "Sand Bay holiday village."

Former Pontins Resorts

Entrance to Blackpool camp in November 2009, shortly after it closed

Balloon car 707, with an advert for Pontin's, at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 1990

Chalets at the former Camber Sands camp

Here is a list of some former Pontins resorts in the UK and Ireland that have either closed or been sold: