Record Summer For Whitehouse Farm!

Whitehouse Farm Centre in Northumberland is celebrating following a record breaking summer.

The family business, which celebrated its 20th Anniversary in July, welcomed 14,000 visitors during August – a seven per cent increase on the same time last year. The boost in visitor numbers represents a landmark year for the Farm Centre, with an eleven per cent increase in its total income during the four weeks of August, which generated over £180,000 in turnover. The business was founded by Keith Slater, now 81. Karen Lovatt, Operations Director at Whitehouse Farm Centre, said: “This is a fantastic tribute to the hard work of all our staff and our many wonderful friends both old and new who visited during the summer holidays. “In 1997 the Farm attracted 20,000 visitors annually and now we see over 100,000 visitors a year. This growth and the income it generates enables us to continue developing our visitor offering and events programme with exciting new activities and attractions for people to come back again and enjoy.” The Farm has made several exciting new investments totalling £80,000 this year.

They include a new ice cream parlour, full refurbishment of the café to create the Whitehouse Farm Kitchen, extending the Farm’s animal housing and creating a new interactive indoor play area. “The family has worked extremely hard to develop the business into one of Northumberland’s favourite visitor attractions,” Karen added.”We have worked had hard to strengthen our branding by refreshing our online platforms and introducing Nelson the Pig, our official farm mascot. We’ve also recruited more staff, including a dedicated events coordinator to expand our activities programme. Next month we are introducing online ticket sales for day passes, annual memberships and special events to make it even easier for visitors to plan their day out.” Jude Leitch, Director of Northumberland Tourism, the destination management organisation for the county, said: “Whitehouse Farm Centre is a success story.

I’d like to congratulate the team on such a busy summer and a hugely successful 20 years in business. “We have outstanding tourism talent and distinguished businesses throughout Northumberland and they all play a vital role in helping to ensure our county is a top place to visit year after year. “Tourism currently makes up 11.8% of Northumberland’s economy which is 2.7% higher than the national average and contributes £665 million to the economy.”