Client: Hampshire County Council
Working as country park consultants we completed a review of Staunton Country Park to consider investment needs, ways to improve operational performance and enhance the visitor experience at this historic farm and walled garden visitor experience. A number of the heritage buildings are listed – within the farm and walled heritage gardens. There are four Grade II listed buildings and one Grade I listed building. Within Leigh Park Gardens there are a number of Grade II listed buildings/structures including the Coach House, a Grade II* listed building.
Our work has been used to underpin the future investment programme across the site and our work included: individual site reviews to identify constraints and opportunities, operational reviews and financial analysis to identify the baseline position, extensive stakeholder and staff consultation, a programme of visitor research (over 2,000 surveys were completed across the Country Parks managed by Hampshire County Council) to identify visitors’ needs; assessing a number of case examples to identify best practice within the country park and wider visitor experience sectors; carrying out a detailed market assessment including demographic profiling and a review of the tourism market place and preparing a smart development action plan.
The primary objective of our work was to identify and assess ways to increase visitor numbers, identify income generation opportunities and enhance the visitor experiences at Staunton Country Park. It was important to identify the sense of place at Staunton Country Park and to ensure that each suggested action respected the site’s own sense of place and special qualities.
Our work focused on seven key themed areas:
- Play and learning
- Worth third party provided
- Catering and retail
- Marketing
- Technology – the use of technology to improve the customer experience
- The visitor journey and flows
- Car parking
Photo kindly supplied by Hampshire County Council.
How can we help?
If you have any questions about preparing a business plan or masterplan for a heritage farm park, country park or walled garden or would like to discuss our work please don’t hesitate to call Richard Linington on 07866 742628 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk