July/August 2024
This year’s Melplash Show President is Martin Cox, whose ‘day job’ is running West Dorset Leisure Holidays (WDLH) from its flagship holiday park, Highlands End. We caught up with Martin at the park on the cusp of the busy holiday season and with the area’s favourite agricultural show on the horizon…
The Bridge: Martin, you have big shoes to fill, taking over from Michael Fooks as Melplash Show President. How do you feel about stepping into the role?
Martin Cox: It’s a huge honour and I feel very proud. I’m a local person – I grew up in the centre of town, where my dad was a coal merchant – and I started going to the Melplash Show when I was at secondary school. I’ve always admired the show and the way the local community supports it.
TB: Why do you think you’ve been asked this year?
MC: WDLH is a family concern and we’ve supported the show for a long time, both personally and as a business. I’m particularly interested in the Melplash Agricultural Society’s educational work, teaching young people about farming and where their food comes from.
I’m also pleased that a few years ago we were able to put in place a very long-term legal arrangement to provide the show with parking on the west side of the river, with access from the A35. My wife, Vanessa, and I were very proud to be in a position to do this and it shows how a tourism business can act for the benefit of agriculture, community and such a key local event.
TB: Highlands End is a Bridport institution! How did your business develop?
MC: Highlands End was started by Vanessa’s parents in 1971. I came on board in 1984 – that’s 40 years ago! – and we’ve been running it together ever since. Our sons, James and Robert, are now on the team, too. Over the years we’ve developed the park to meet our customers’ expectations and added five others: Eype Beach; Golden Cap at Seatown; Larkfield and Graston Copse at Burton Bradstock; and Sandyholme at Owermoigne. Our staff team has grown from 7 to 90.
TB: You own a lot of land, but do you have any experience of farming?
MC: As well as our six holiday parks and some tenanted farmland at Burton Bradstock, we also own Watton and West Cliff Farm run by my youngest son, Robert, and his partner Isobel. There we have a flock of 280 Suffolk ewes, 8 rare breed Blue Texels, 8 alpacas and some chickens. I’d say we’re ‘soft farmers’ but I like to think we understand some of the challenges farmers face, and what’s important to them.
Here at Highlands End we had a 10-year plan under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, which meant we could concentrate on enhancing the landscape, and we’ve continued to do this by planting and laying hedges and replacing fences. We’re starting to see the benefits of that now. We’ve also agreed to convert
a four-acre plot into woodland as part of a government initiative to expand and create woodlands on suitable land. And we’ve joined a ‘rewilding’ project and will rewild an area of wetland by the river going down to West Bay. I’m in favour of rewilding unproductive areas like these, but it’s not so good when farmers lose productive land to rewilding schemes.
TB: Why do you think it’s important to teach children about farming?
MC: I think it’s sad that there are children in big towns and cities who don’t understand how animals are bred for food, which meat comes from which animal, and that vegetables have roots! We need to improve understanding about our food supply, particularly in the context of global uncertainty, and also about the importance of not wasting food. Melplash runs a brilliant education programme called Discover Farming, which gets right back to the basics of food production. It even has a classroom at Washingpool Farm where groups from schools and other young people’s organisations can go to learn about food and farming. Our holiday park gives many urban families the chance to visit the coast and countryside, and to understand and appreciate rural life more fully.
TB: What do you enjoy most about running your holiday businesses?
MC: I find I appreciate more and more just how important a holiday is to our visitors. Living here, often we don’t fully understand the benefits of our area, but people from urban areas look forward so much to coming here. That was brought home to me when I got chatting to a couple on Thorncombe Beacon. They were camping at Seatown and had just arrived – they said the first thing they always did was to walk to the top. They’d been waiting all year in a city environment to come back here. They didn’t know who I was and it was a very rewarding comment. We have lots of regular customers and it’s lovely when people come back again and again.
Walking in the countryside is the second most important attraction after the beach for visitors to the area, and I enjoy looking after our land so the visitors can enjoy it safely alongside farming. Most of our customers come from within two and a half hours’ drive; over the last 30 years I’ve noticed that people travel less far for their UK holidays. We used to have more people from Scotland and the north of England, for instance.
TB: Which of your business’s achievements are you most proud of?
MC: I’m particularly proud of our involvement with the community. There are a few things that stand out: we provided the car park for Eype Centre for the Arts; we host the Makers Market each November, with proceeds going to the Julia’s House children’s hospice; and we host and support other events that your readers will be aware of.
And of course there’s our collection of fire engines and memorabilia in Martin’s Bar! I was a retained firefighter at Bridport Station for 31 years and I’m fascinated by the history of the fire service. We have on display a 1902 Merryweather Horsedrawn Steamer, which was bought by the Bridport service and is on loan from Bridport Museum. We also have a 1936 Leyland which was purchased by Weymouth and finished its service in Bridport in the early 1960s when some members of my family were in the crew.
I hope we’ve made Highlands End a visitor destination that’s also seen as being very embedded in the local community.
This year’s show is on Thursday 22 August. Advance tickets are £20 from www.melplashshow.co.uk