New wave eco-lodges
February 11, 2007 - The Sunday Times
The UK's latest holiday homes are environmentally friendly, affordable and stunning too.
Owning a bolt hole in the sun once seemed the ideal way to forget the worries of the world. But with aviation contributing to 1.6% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and the government responding this month by doubling air passenger duty on flights, staying in the UK is increasingly the most economical and ecological option.
Yet holiday homes here come with their own pitfalls. As the UK housing shortage continues to highlight the senselessness of properties standing empty for six months of the year, buying existing properties as second homes has become a frowned-upon - not to mention costly - exercise.
But there is an alternative. Innovative eco-chalets, cabins and retreats are springing up in Britain that could satisfy both your bank manager and your green conscience. They look fabulous, perform to top environmental standards and, crucially, are classified by planning authorities as holiday lets. This allows any individual to spend a fixed amount of time - most often six months - in residence, while letting out their retreats to others for the rest of the year.
Owners get to escape to the country guilt-free while turning a tidy profit, safe in the knowledge that their eco-retreat is helping to preserve, rather than destroy, some of Britain's most spectacular countryside.
Environmental construction firm Ecobuild UK has built 10 lodges in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, that are now run by Natural Retreats, a holiday company. The scheme's three-bed lodges are made of glass and sustainably sourced European larch, with sedum roofs contoured like the hills that surround them. The lodges' windows face south to maximise solar heat gain and they are insulated with recycled newspaper; they have condensing gas boilers and wood-burning stoves.
Two of the lodges are owned privately, but Natural Retreats lets out all 10 at rates ranging from £525 to £770 per week, depending on the season. The lodges occupy about 10 acres of a 52-acre site of mixed woodland and ancient meadow. More lodges and a possible yoga retreat are at the planning stage, but each new lodge will have a minimum of two acres of land around it, and 20% of the homes will be available for private purchase. Three-bed properties, expected to be built at the end of this year, will be priced from £275,000. Natural Retreats ploughs a percentage of its profits into protecting the natural habit and has the support of English Nature and the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust for its plans to create a wildlife area.