Discover Parks bags business award  

Discover Parks is the ‘Medium to Large Business of the Year’ following the recent Herefordshire Means Business Awards presentation night.  

Discover Parks, owned and run by Glenn and Hannah Jones is made up of three country holiday parks. There’s Arrow Bank in Eardisland, Pearl Lake in Shobdon and Rockbridge, just over the border in Presteigne, Powys.  

From a handful of staff when the Jones’ bought Pearl Lake in 1998, there are now just over 40 team members across three parks. The business has four distinct areas offering a well rounded holiday experience. Owned caravan holiday homes, self-catering caravans, lodges, cottages and glamping, touring and tenting pitches and residential park homes at its Rockbridge site.  

Award reveals growth

Discover Park is no stranger to Herefordshire Means Business Awards. In 2018 it was named ‘Family Business of the Year’. In 2025, after seven years of sustained growth, Discover pipped Elgar Care and Franklin Hodge Industries to take the ‘Medium to Large Business’ accolade.  

Managing Director, Glenn Jones says the award acknowledges 25 years of hard work. “We’ve made great strides in the last few years. We’re constantly looking to innovate and raise standards. For instance we’ve introduced robot mowers to keep our park’s open spaces looking fantastic, whilst freeing up our grounds team to do other critical jobs.  

“This summer we launched a new website. We’ll shortly be launching an industry leading booking system which we’re pioneering in the UK. One of our greatest advances has been the opening of our large-scale maintenance site at Downwood, Shobdon. This incorporates a decking manufacturing facility which we don’t believe any other holiday park of our size has.” 

Wide range of employment

Glenn’s team of 40 are employed in a wide variety of roles. These include Guest Experience, Finance, Sales & Ownership, Grounds, Fabrication, Construction, Health & Safety, Maintenance and Housekeeping.  

Glenn says there’s plenty more in the pipeline when it comes to future plans: “Tourism generally has had a difficult few years following the pandemic. We’ve been careful to pace ourselves, and we’re now starting to put the wheels in motion to take our plans forward.” 

Work still to be done

Improving the parks’ green credentials including doing onsite recycling where possible is on the cards: “There’s no way a business the size of ours can stand still. We’re always brainstorming and encouraging our team to do out of the box thinking. We always listen to any ideas! We’re also looking at how we can embrace AI positively within the business moving forward. We like to think we’re future proofing Discover Parks to be the best it can be and encourage more visitors to Herefordshire.” 

Image by Richard Weaver (L-R: Mark Whittall (Discover Parks Maintenance Director), Hannah Jones, Glenn Jones, Gordon Dwyer (Herefordshire Council Inward Investment Manager), Matt Teale (ITV Meridian News)