PGL activity holidays for children

Taking its name from the initials of its founder, Peter Gordon Lawrence, PGL specialises in activity holidays for schools and families, as well as winter sports and a huge range of bespoke educational, cultural and language tours.

The company celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and now has around 200 permanent– and anything up to 2,500 seasonal – staff. Most of the permanent staff arebased at the Ross headquarters, which are due to be redeveloped next year to provide more space for the burgeoning organisation.

By far the market leader in its field, PGL has sites throughout the UK as well as France and Spain, and a turnover of around £60m per year. The company works with a staggering 250,000 children and families each year and qualifies more people with BCU canoeing qualifications than any other organisation apart from the armed forces.

Most of the business involves school visits to PGL’s residential centres where up to 60 different activities are available, but the company’sski tours, school tours and art, language and cultural visits take in destinations throughout France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

‘It really is an absolutely huge logistical enterprise,’ says HR manager Mark Lavington. So what is the appeal of Ross for a company this size? ‘It’s a great place to be,’ he says. ‘It’s small enough to be accessible – you can have a really good job and still be able to walk to work, which is rare. You don’t feel overwhelmed’

Two of PGL’s sites are located very close to Ross – at Hole-in-the-Wall and Hillcrest – adding to the plethora of leisure opportunities for children in the area. ‘For families with children, Ross is perfect,’ he says. ‘As well as the river there are really active, forward-thinking sports clubs – the rowing club is a real social hub for the town, and the cricket club is very proactive in terms of its youth policy. Then there are volleyball clubs, cycling clubs, you name it – you really have to work to avoid them.’

The transport links also make Ross an ideal location for young families, he says. ‘It’s possible for one half of a couple to work in Ross while the other could easily work in Cardiff, Birmingham, Cheltenham, Hereford or Gloucester. You’re in this nice English market town, but within 45 minutes you could be running an executive business with a huge amount of clients.’

However, Ross has steadfastly managed to avoid the whole ‘commuter town’ syndrome, and there is still affordable property available. ‘You don’t have streets and streets of empty houses where people leave at six in the morning and don’t get back until eight at night, he says. ‘It still feels like a community rather than a housing development.’