Milford on Sea bed and breakfast, England
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Harvest House offers Bed and Breakfast in a family home. It is committed to achieving environmental best practice throughout its business activities.
Harvest House recognises that economic growth must be closely linked to a healthy environment. Ecological protection and sustainable practice are collective responsibilities in which we all play a role not only as individuals but as communities, and as governments.
We will endeavour to maintain our property as efficiently as possible and protect and encourage the wildlife that visits our grounds. Bat boxes, bird boxes (complete with nestcam for our clients’ enjoyment), fresh water garden pond appropriate shrub and flower planting all encourage wildlife to our grounds. We will comply with all relevant environmental legislation and approved codes of practice.
We will endeavour to encourage an understanding of the environmental issues arising from our business activity among our suppliers, contractors, customers and the local community.
Where supply allows, we will endeavour to use local resources and more than 50% of our produce is locally produced and where possible displaying the New Forest Marque.
Where possible we will reduce our energy and water consumption, and ensure that in the disposing of waste, we will recycle where safe and appropriate, limiting and preventing any environmental pollution.
PV panels provide us with electricity reducing our need by 30%.We return any over production to the grid. Solar panels supply much of our hot water reducing our call on gas supply by 50%. Food waste is reduced as clients are asked to complete their breakfast requirement for the following day, the night before, and if there is any waste, our JK composter converts all to compost in a very few weeks.
By using a modern water softener, the need for soaps and chemicals is reduced to almost zero. The call for water to the washing machine is reduced by 50%, as is the need for water for unnecessary rinsing of chemicals and soaps no longer used. We will review our programme of objectives and targets annually to ensure our continual improvement, and have recently introduced a small bicycle rental business on site to promote a more environmentally friendly transport system
Community
We promote local businesses , pertinent to our clients' stays on the extensive out and about page of our website, and further advise clients, at the point of making a booking to stay at Harvest House, on the amenities in the village and immediate vicinity. We have good working relationships with these businesses who like ourselves are a cog in the wheel of the tourism industry in the New Forest National Park. The New Forest Tourist Association has approximately 300 members from all walks of the tourism industry. Knowledge is there to be shared and the large and wealthy attractions and Hotels provide the smaller partners...the B&B's, self catering units etc. with a deal of support coming in many guises. Likewise the smaller partners promote by way of word of mouth, display of advertising and leaflets etc. their larger colleagues. Generally the system works very well.
We promote New Forest Marque produce and are ourselves associate members of the Marque, serving local produce by preference and where possible at our breakfast table. This combines well with our ethos of sustainability and that of other local businesses.
Looking to the future, hopefully the more immediate future, we are particularly keen to promote non vehicular transportation in the Forest, whether it be walking, cycling, horse riding or driving, to mention a few. A number of businesses are already involved in these activities and it cannot be denied that of all of them cycling, with our success as a nation in that sport, is the current hot potato. Somehow this needs to be addressed as otherwise we are certainly going to miss a trick. There are 200 miles of track in the national park of which 100 is available to the public.Imagine being able to cycle from Lymington to Swanage in safety utilising the Forest tracks and old railway lines. Leaving The Forest at Ringwood and thence onwards on those same railway tracks to Swanage, what a fabulous day out for all, and a potentially huge boost to tourism.
Landscape
Harvest House, on the coastal border of the New Forest National Park is 200yds from the footpath network, a mile or so from the acclaimed Pennington marshes and three miles from the open Forest. We discuss with our clients (if they wish) their daily schedules and our own knowledge gained from so many sources has become invaluable.
The green leaf sector of the new forest tourism association helps to encourage and promote, through lectures and organised visits, our understanding of the environment around us. The warden of the marshes at Pennington is pleased to impart knowledge of any unusual wildlife... generally birdlife... that may arrive throughout the year as we are directly on the migration route for many birds. Writing this in October, in the past four or five weeks we have been host to three juvenile Sabine Gulls, a double crested cormorant, a semipalmated sandpiper and a Baird's Sandpiper. As the swallows and sand martins are leaving we await the arrival of the Brent geese, receiving a large percentage of the world’s population of Brent in this area over the winter period.
For the botanist, rare orchids can be found in areas of our Forest, and the patient observer will find smooth newts, crested newts and sticklebacks water boatmen and a myriad of water wildlife in the pools and rivulets that meet in Forest streams where the same silent observer may be lucky and spot a small brown trout or two. The Rufus Stone, The Knightwood Oak are small testimonies to the enduring history of the Forest which remains one of the most successful co-operatives between man and his environment thanks to the ancient system of Verderers and Commoners that has developed in our Forest that is in itself nearly one thousand years old.
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