Since lockdown ended we have improved safety measures to ensure your visit is a safe and enjoyable one. It has been a major undertaking to prepare the Park for this. For example, the booking system we have used for years simply wasn’t designed for these extraordinary times, so we have installed new software which allows us to restrict visitor numbers via pre-bookings. We have reviewed all our public areas and introduced some measures to keep our staff and visitors safe. Please note: these are in addition to our previous announcement on the website which you can find here. Although Cotswold…

UK house prices increased by 5.4% in the year to October 2020, up from 4.3% in September 2020. The UK Property Transactions Statistics showed that in October 2020, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the estimated number of transactions of residential properties with a value of £40,000 or greater was 105,630. This is 8.1% higher than a year ago. Between September and October 2020, UK transactions increased by 9.8% on a seasonally adjusted basis. House price growth was strongest in Scotland where prices increased by 6% in the year to October 2020, up from 4% in the year to September 2020.…

Why? Experian and the other Credit Reference Agencies (CRAs) had been receiving data from other data brokers, their suppliers, which had been collected on the basis of ‘consent’. Key Finding 4 of the “Investigation into data protection compliance in the direct marketing data broking sector” states: None of the consents reviewed by auditors … were valid under the GDPR. These are the same data brokers who you are most likely to get your data from. Experian, Equifax and Callcredit/TransUnion are not foolish, and they do not merely accept the assurances of these data suppliers. The problem is with the way these data…

SME Today met Sara Frost, who is currently Website & Marketing Manager for the wildlife tour operator Naturetrek. Sara is a trained Zoologist and wildlife guide and we were fascinated to hear about her journey to becoming a successful ‘Life Entrepreneur’ Sara was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug early in life. She describes going door-to-door age six to sell spider plants to her neighbours in County Durham. “I came back with £4.80 – I thought I was rich… Until my dad explained to me that I had left with a £3 float in my bumbag. It was a hard first…

The UK Government recently relaxed its lockdown measures, enabling numerous businesses – including pubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers – to reopen, providing they have taken measures to ensure they are COVID-19 secure. The new measures, including the reduction of the two-metre social distancing rule to one-metre, will enable thousands of businesses to reopen, giving the UK economy a much-needed boost. One of the proposed measures for allowing employees to safely return to the workplace is to introduce staggered shift patterns or hours. This would reduce the likelihood of large numbers of people travelling at peak times and therefore, hopefully, reducing the…

On 28 December 2020, George from Cotswold Wildlife Park completed a marathon around the Park in aid of Save the Rhino. When he originally planned it, George didn’t think it would involve running in the snow on a freezing winters day! He ran 52 laps of the half mile circuit around Cotswold Wildlife Park inside a cumbersome Rhino costume, cheered on by our six White Rhinos, Henry and Molly (Head Keeper’s children) and the rest of the keepers. After seven hours of running in very challenging conditions, the marathon was finally completed. Congratulations to George and Eden for their…

Teams today are more complex than ever before as growing pressures create increasing uncertainty and stress.  So, wouldn’t it be great if there was a magic code that helped take the guess work out of leading and motivating a team to peak performance? The pressures of today are conspiring to make teaming in our places of work exceptionally difficult, more so than any of us have ever experienced before. Understanding these current day dynamics will help us to equip ourselves to better deal with them. In our places of work, we are enduring digital transformation after digital transformation, each one…

The University of Plymouth has been granted permission to create an iconic new facility that will inspire and educate the next generation of engineers and designers. The Babbage building, on the western edge of the University’s main campus, will be enlarged and enhanced to provide an innovative and sustainable new home for the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics and additional space for the School of Art, Design and Architecture. Designed by internationally award-winning architectural practice Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, it has received conditional planning approval from Plymouth City Council. The facility will include a dedicated new-build component and refurbishment of the 1970s Babbage building,…

Midlands-based travel management platform ‘You. Smart. Thing.’ has secured a development capital boost of £1.1m. The funding will accelerate the company’s pre-Covid ambitious expansion plans, enabling it to invest in continuous product development, fuel sales and marketing activities and embark on a recruitment drive to create 29 new jobs by 2024 in the Midlands region.  The Midlands Engine Investment Fund (“MEIF”) Debt Finance, managed by Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”), has provided ‘You. Smart. Thing. Limited’ (“YST”), with £250,000 from the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) alongside an existing £250,000 MEIF loan, taking its financial backing of the company to…

Exclaimer, provider of world-class email signature management solutions, today announced an investment of over £100M from leading global software investor, Insight Partners, with participation from Farview Equity Partners and existing investor Livingbridge. The capital and strategic operations support provided will enable Exclaimer to invest in product innovation, go-to-market channels, and international growth to strengthen its position as the most adopted email signature solution globally. It will bring Exclaimer into an investment portfolio of globally leading SaaS businesses and underpins Exclaimer’s vision to be the global standard for imprinting on digital business communications for centralised brand consistency. Exclaimer has provided its…

Offsite Solutions, the UK’s leading bathroom pod manufacturer, has announced a 73 per cent increase in pre-tax profits on a turnover of £33.3m. These results have put Offsite Solutions in a stronger position to minimise the impact of the current pandemic. All its bathroom pod factories remained open throughout the Coronavirus lockdowns this year, operating with Covid-secure processes and procedures in place and at reduced levels as a number of construction projects were delayed. However, by maintaining production, all pod deliveries were made to the dates required for every customer which is a major achievement. Enquiries remain at a high level and have grown…

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation has developed throughout 2020, the events industry has faced an unprecedented time of risk and uncertainty.  Many organisations have postponed or simply cancelled events.  However, the team at Great British Expos have decided to move their South West Expo 2020 event online by running a virtual exhibition on 16th December. Great British Expos have been working for the past 3 months on developing a virtual platform which includes a wide range of features to reflect a real exhibition environment, including; virtual stands, interactive keynote stage, a visitor networking lounge, workshop session areas with the ability to…

To mark the fifth anniversary of his historic journey to space, British astronaut Tim Peake asks people to share their stories of how his mission inspired them. At 11.03am on 15 December 2015, Tim Peake ascended into the sky on a Soyuz rocket and became the first Briton ever to live aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Tim’s mission, Principia, helped inspire a generation of schoolchildren to discover the opportunities offered by science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects. During the 6-month mission, the UK Space Agency worked with Tim on more than 30 outreach projects with a range of…

Global leader in online vehicle remarketing, Copart UK, have announced major expansion plans for their Bristol Operation Centre as part of their ongoing growth programme that has seen over £30m re-invested in land and transport this year alone. The expansion at Bristol is a clear demonstration of Copart’s multi-faceted re-investment strategy, combining a programme of land acquisition with continuous investment in transport, service, and technology. Originally a 16-acre site, Copart celebrated the addition of a further 24 acres in 2019 and are now accelerating plans to develop a further 23 acres, making this location set to become a 63-acre ‘Super…

Everyone in the UK who trades with Europe or under the Northern Ireland Protocol will be affected by new customs and tax rules from 1 January 2021. With less than a month to go until the Brexit transition period ends, HMRChas sent 250,000 letters and emails to VAT-registered traders, urging them to get ready for new trading rules with Europe. Katherine Green and Sophie Dean, HMRC’s Directors General, Borders and Trade, said: We understand the complex pressures that all businesses are dealing with this winter as a result of COVID-19. But everyone in the UK who trades with Europe or under the…

Kingston GPs and TeamDoctor’s content creators, The Sound Doctor, have won a Highly Commended award from the national Self-Care Forum this week. The Forum told us: “Judges were impressed by Kingston GPs and The Sound Doctor delivering self-care support at scale. This was done through the introduction, across the CCG, of a suite of empowering self -care films for patients during lockdown, and included a comprehensive new Qismet (The Quality Institute for Self-management Education and Training) certified online diabetes course” Phil Moore is Deputy Clinical Chair of Kingston CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) commented “Kingston is delighted to have been given a commendation for the self-care work we have done…