By Anna Rose Davis - 15 March 2010

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The 46 finalists for the Enjoy England Awards have been announced.

This year’s finalists were selected from more than 100 regional winners and range from a splendid North Yorkshire castle to Brighton’s vibrant festival. Among the 16 categories, the sustainable tourism award was the most popular for entries this year. This is awarded to tourism businesses that have pushed themselves to ensure that your trip seeks to minimise negative environmental impacts and to maximise benefits to the surrounding environment and community.

Contenders for the sustainable tourism award include Bordeaux Quay, an eco restaurant, delicatessen and cookery school offering local organic food and fine dining. The other finalists include a four-star spa hotel on the Yorkshire coast and a working stone farm cottage near Holy Island in Northumberland. 

Along Bristol’s harbour side sits Bordeaux Quay, founded by chef, Barny Haughton, and environmentalist and entrepreneur, John Pontin. This restaurant focuses on local, seasonal, organic and sustainably-sourced produce. This is the UK’s first eco-restaurant to receive a gold rating under the Soil Association’s catering scheme and holds ‘The Food for Life Catering Mark’ backed by Prince Charles. This mark guarantees a sustainable meal with standards and takes into account food additives, animal welfare and the seasonality of the produce used.

Haughton and Pontin’s mission was to create a restaurant that ‘could be the best restaurant for quality and sustainability’ said Amy Robinson, the Sustainable Development Manager. Robinson works within all areas of the restaurant to ensure that everything is as environmentally responsible as possible. Robinson’s was thrilled to be a national finalist, she said ‘it’s lovely to find that something that was not well recognised now is and has it own award and is great that we are in it’.

Ingredients for the restaurant, bakery and cookery school are primarily sourced from The West Country, with organic flours from Gloucestershire for their handmade loaves and pastries, and fish from Cornish day boats instead of trawlers. They use various suppliers that buy their fish from different parts of Cornwall, but particularly one that focuses on the popular fishing town of Looe. Salmon is bought from two organic salmon farms in Scotland and Ireland, Robinson discussed that sourcing wild salmon is not sustainable due the population being on the brink of extinction, and that they are specific about the fish farms that they use.

The menu changes daily to reflect the best of the seasons but remains creative and true to Haughton’s philosophy of being ‘local, organic and sustainable, but also about loving food and paying attention to food.’ This gives the restaurant a freedom to use ingredients that are made available to them on the day, such as wild mushrooms. Local foragers, fishermen or suppliers can call one day with a special and impromptu ingredient and because they are independent and only need a small amount they can “diverse their menu around it.”  This is the same case with seasonal produce such as asparagus, “because we source seasonally we will only have asparagus on the menu when it is in season in England,” said Robinson, and this can be for a short period of time. They buy and use the whole animals and vegetables and use the trimmings in stock for sauces and stews, their freshly squeezed orange juice comes from Fairtrade oranges and their coffee is certified by the Rainforest Alliance.

Keeping with the theme ‘to make Bordeaux Quay as sustainable as possible’ the building has been fitted with features such as, light sensors in the toilet to a rain water harvesting system and a comprehensive recycling and composting scheme.

Its next step is to ‘improve efficiencies and impact’, says Robinson, ‘sustainability is an ongoing thing.’ This is a fine dining experience that has continued the original image and mission and will proceed to educate our minds and taste buds of the joys of local and seasonal produce.

The second finalist is the Crown Spa Hotel, the only 4 star hotel along the Yorkshire coast. It is located on the cliff top of Whitby, offering magnificent views of the sea and South Bay beach. Around 18 months ago the hotel began to concentrate on reducing its carbon emissions, and they have managed to reduce them dramatically by 25%, but are continuing to aim for 50%. This has been accomplished through self funding.
 
Ruth Armstrong works in the marketing department and nominated the hotel for the award, she said the reduction was achieved with ‘staff training throughout all departments, turning off televisions, lights etc in staff rooms and other areas of the hotel.’ A green team has also been put together which consists of members of staff pulling their ideas together. This has resulted in a green pack which is kept in each room and informs guests of how to reduce their carbon footprint and put money back into the local community; Ruth said ‘we are trying to get guests to use local transport and businesses.’

All of the bedrooms have also been rewired so that the lights only come on when you put the key card in, a system that many hotels have also adhered to. September saw the installation of 25 solar panels on the roof, which they hope will help them achieve their carbon reduction goal.

Around 160 miles north of the hotel within the heather laden countryside of Northumberland sits Hunting Hall, 278 acres of farm that offers self catering cottages with an eco-friendly twist. Newt Cottage and The Fuffins have been restored to their Georgian and Victorian periods, but beyond the brick work lays modern energy saving technologies.

Karen Burns and her husband were leaders of the Wildlife Trust youth group when 10 teenagers came to their farm to take part in some community work, but this had an unexpected turn. The group had been inspired by a compost toilet and they wanted to build one, but the idea developed and an empty cottage on the farm was transformed. NEWT cottage is named after Northumberland Eco Wild Team the group of teenagers that undertook this project. The development began in 2005 and the teenagers were hands on ‘researching green paints and working to a budget.’ ‘The whole idea was to share their ideas, communicating with guests and how to be green,’ said Karen, ‘it started as a project, and then we decided to make it a business.’ Following this Karen started planning The Fuffins, which is named after one of their farms.

Both cottages are surrounded by splendid countryside and Newt has its own garden filled with flowers, vegetables and raspberries. The houses feature environmentally friendly elements including sheep wool insulation throughout certain areas of the house, recycling water from the washing machine etc and rain water, solar panels and an air-source heat pump. There’s also a dual flush toilet to save water, three part recycling bins and recycled glasses, paper, toilet rolls, tissues and pens. Groceries can also be ordered before your arrival and bought from The Green Shop in the nearby town, Berwick on Tweed, which stocks a selection of Fairtrade and organic produce.

Jon Proctor of the Green Tourism Business Scheme praised the farm for being ‘an exemplary business with a strong green ethos. He said ‘this blend of traditional and progressive ideas helps the site gain one of the highest scores in the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) and is a leader in demonstrating the value of going green.’

Hunting Hall is a working farm and Mr and Mrs Burns won’t be attending the awards ceremony as they need to look after their animals including rare breeds of pigs; Saddlebacks, Middle Whites and British Lop. They are members of the Rare Breed Survival Trust.

Karen has an undeniable love for Northumberland and this is witnessed in the care and consideration which was taken in restoring the houses, the work on the farm and the teaching of Northumberland traditions, such as Northumbrian music. Proctor said that this was ‘overall a very eco and chic family atmosphere, no wonder the site achieves a high return rate.’ Karen’s next idea is to create a community orchard.

Last year’s winner of the sustainable tourism award was The Venus Company, based in Totnes, Devon. The Venus Company have shops and cafes at five different beach locations around England, and work to ensure that ‘the company strives to bring the professionalism of the high street to some of the UK’s most beautiful seaside locations while integrating environmental and social care into every aspect of decision-making.’

The winners will be awarded at The Corn Exchange, Brighton on Friday April 23rd, marking St George’s Day.

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