National Lottery Heritage Fund Business Planning Consultancy Projects

National Lottery Heritage Fund Business Planning Consultancy Projects

As National Lottery Heritage Fund  business planning consultants we specialise in preparing business plans for National Lottery Heritage Fund projects. This includes market assessments and audience research, option appraisals, advice on governance and staffing, competitive analysis, visitor modelling, developing forecast trading profiles, developing marketing plans, preparing risk assessments and evaluation plans.

What helps us to deliver robust business plans for National Lottery Heritage Fund projects?

Our sister company operates CONKERS, a 120 acre woodland discovery and adventure centre; the National Brewery Centre, a major heritage experience in Burton upon Trent; Kent Life, a heritage park in Maidstone and the Cotswold Country Park and Beach near Cirencester. This hands-on experience is of real benefit alongside our work on heritage and commercial business planning consultancy projects. We are more than happy to provide study tours of these attractions.

While we don’t prepare activity plans, interpretation plans or designs, we regularly work with activity planners, interpretation experts, architects and designers.

We have worked on a number of exciting and challenging Heritage Lottery Fund business planning projects. These include Ditherington Flax Mill in Shrewsbury, Houghton Hall Park in Dunstable, Bowring Park in Knowsley, Merseyside and more recently the Sussex Wildlife Trust’s new Rye Harbour Discovery Centre project.  Follow the link to find out about our National Lottery Heritage Fund Business Planning projects.

We are commercial in our outlook and recognise the many challenges of developing and operating a financially sustainable visitor experience.

“PSC supported us to create a business plan for a new visitor centre at Rye Harbour. This built on work we had carried out, but ensured a well-researched and more thorough approach than we had capacity or experience to deliver ourselves. Kevin and Richard bring direct and practical experience of visitor centre management, so the document is well-grounded in reality. We were also then able to submit this with our bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund.  Richard and Kevin were great to work with – very professional, clear and they produced a thorough and robust document for us. They were very personable and always happy to speak on the phone to ensure clarity. They also kept to all their tight deadlines which was very appreciated, considering how many different people were giving detailed feedback on their drafts! I am happy to recommend them to others.” Tor Lawrence, CEO, Sussex Wildlife Trust

Top left image kindly supplied by Houghton Hall Park

Contact us

If you have any questions or would like to discuss our Lottery and visitor experience work please don’t hesitate to call Richard Linington on 07866 742628 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk

Nature reserve and environmental projects

Nature reserve and environmental projects

Planning Solutions Consulting has worked at a number of existing and proposed nature reserve and wildlife projects. We have helped clients prepare business plans through to managing programmes of visitor research, preparing income generation strategies, advising on strategic development opportunities and producing visitor experience masterplans. Find out more about our nature reserve and wildlife projects here and other projects here.

Some of the clients we have worked with include:

  • Hampshire County Council
  • Lancashire Wildlife Trust
  • Natural England
  • Natural Resources Wales
  • Northumberland Wildlife Trust
  • Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust
  • Shropshire Wildlife Trust
  • Staffordshire Wildlife Trust
  • Sussex Wildlife Trust
  • The Bristol Port Company
  • The RSPB
  • Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust

Contact us

If you have any questions or would like to discuss our work on nature reserve and wildlife community and tourism projects please don’t hesitate to call Richard Linington on 07866 742628 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk

Visitor accommodation projects

Visitor accommodation projects

Holiday accommodation remains the main holiday expenditure item and offering a range of high quality accommodation types is an essential component of a successful visitor economy.

Our work in the accommodation sector was established when we were part of the Rank Group in the early 90s and our division was responsible for the introduction of the Warner Heritage Hotels and the Oasis Holiday Village subsequently acquired and subsumed into the Centre Parcs portfolio.

Our lead specialist area is in the self-catering sector, (including camping, lodges and other forms of innovative holiday units) where for more than 20 years we have worked extensively on new development projects, often as part of mixed use schemes.

Find out more about our accommodation projects here and other projects here.

We are retained advisers to Forest Holidays who we work with on new site finding and development planning.  Some of the clients we have worked with include:

  • Easy Hotels (franchisee)
  • Hampshire County Council
  • Forest Holidays
  • John Fowler Holidays
  • Oaksey Park
  • Newport City Council
  • Monmouthshire County Council
  • Rank Group
  • Rempstone Estate
  • Warner Hotels

Our clients have been appreciative of our work: “Forest Holidays has been working with Planning Solutions Consulting Limited for over a decade. Working closely with our senior management team they have been providing expert market reviews and carrying out site assessments across the UK. They have also been providing strategic input to analyse growth market targets and to help shape our development strategy. This has helped Forest Holidays to expand our portfolio of sites across the UK. We have found that the quality of advice has always been very sound and robustly argued and we have often reverted back to PSCL’s earlier research work and reports which have demonstrated their validity over time. Planning Solutions Consulting delivers their work within budget and on time. We would have no hesitation in recommending Planning Solutions Consulting to other organisations.” Gary Fletcher, former Chief Executive Officer, Forest Holidays

How can we help?
If you have any questions or would like to discuss our work within the accommodation sector please don’t hesitate to call Richard Linington on 07866 742628 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk

Business Planning: Shaping your future project strategy with robust financial analysis

Business Planning: Shaping your future project strategy with robust financial analysis

Working as tourism business planning consultants we assess concepts and ideas for new and existing businesses and we prepare detailed business plans, which are used to support funding applications.

Our business plans include:-

  • Market assessment
  • Case examples
  • Visitor modelling
  • Management and staffing
  • Detailed financial appraisal
  • Funding profile
  • Review of governance
  • Risk assessment
  • Marketing strategy
  • Monitoring and evaluation

Our other services related to business planning include carrying out due diligence exercise, economic impact assessments and contingent valuation exercises.   We have worked on a number of business planning projects for a wide range of  projects including Brockholes Nature Centre, a flagship £9m visitor centre managed by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, through Ditheringflax Mill, a private landowner to support the development of luxury lodges in Dorset and Sunderland City Council to support the regeneration of a castle.   

Follow the link to find out about our business planning projects.

How can we help?

Do you need help to prepare a business plan or would you like Planning Solutions Consulting to review an existing plan? If you do please don’t hesitate to phone or email Richard Linington on 07866 742628 

Visitor experience planning: Create a unique visitor experience masterplan

Visitor experience planning: Create a unique visitor experience masterplan

 

Working in multi-disciplinary teams we have developed a number of visitor experience masterplans and masterplans in relation to visitor attractions, heritage centres, castles, nature reserves and country park alongside wider coastal sites.  We identify potential future development scenarios based on site context, market trends, review of case examples (learning from best practice), consultation with stakeholders, primary research and financial parameters.  We create bespoke scoring matrices with a strong market and commercial focus to identify the preferred visitor experience masterplan.

Our visitor experience masterplanning services include:

  • Identifying and defining the product and service opportunities
  • Options appraisal to identify the perferred development scenario
  • Creative workshops
  • Establishing phasing for delivery and operation
  • Preparing the masterplan and visitor experience masterplan (often working with other professionals)
  • Preparing the supporting business case

We have produced and advised on developing visitor experience masterplans for Hampshire County Council,  Forestry England, Natural Resources Wales, Monmouthshire County Council and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council (who kindly provided the top image of Cefn Coed Colliery Museum).

Follow the link to find out about our visitor experience planning and master planning projects.

How can we help?

Do you need help to prepare a visitor experience masterplan? If you do please don’t hesitate to phone or email Richard Linington on 07866 742628