Haldon Forest Park Cafe Concession

Forestry England has a future opportunity for the operation of the Haldon Forest Park Cafe concession lease.

Haldon Forest Park, near Exeter, is one of the south-west’s most popular countryside visitor destinations and it is currently undergoing a period of re-development for completion in 2024. We want to develop partnerships with businesses so that we work together to enable visitors to appreciate our superb forest and understand more about how we manage it sustainably.

Haldon Forest Park is one of the nation's Forests' and is managed by Forestry England. The woodland hosts a network of walking and cycling, running and Nordic Walking trails, Go Ape, Segway, car park, picnic areas, play areas and public toilets. There are about 500,000 day visits per year currently.

Our intention is to award a lease agreement for the newly built café on the site which will consist of the following elements:

• Café and events catering
• Opportunity for ‘pop-up’ mobile trailer on site for drinks & snacks

We anticipate that the lease will be for a period of up to 8 years. A full copy of the draft lease will be available in the tender documents to be published late Spring/early Summer 2023. The total value of this lease opportunity for the initial 5 years will be in the region of £4M. The current aim is for the cafe to open on 1st May 2024.

We are keen to ensure that the cafe specification accurately reflects the offerings of the market. If you are interested in this tender opportunity & would be willing to provide feedback on our current cafe layout plan please can you register your interest with Claire Hodges - claire.hodges@forestryengland.uk by Tuesday 21st June.

Feedback on our plans will be needed by Thursday 30th June 2022 so that our development timescales can be met.