Self-catering specialist Sapphire Holidays has announced a £2m investment at its Cornish offices as it plans for more growth.

The family-owned group of self-catering holiday letting agencies has acquired a former industrial building on Hayle Business Park to turn it into a low-carbon office for its growing team.

Sapphire Holidays brands include Aspects Holidays, Boutique Retreats, Classic Cottages and Unique Hideaways. It collectively manages some 2,650 UK properties, selling £60m of holidays a year, and employs more than 185 people, mostly in Cornwall.

Its new development, set to complete by next Easter, will mainly house staff from Classic Cottages and Boutique Retreats with room for more people in future. It will complement the neighbouring Sapphire House that was built by the group in 2020 for its Aspects Holidays team.

The former Orion Precision Castings building, which started life as an engineering forge and was later used by a tree surgery business, has already been stripped out as part of the refurbishment, with many original materials being retained and new materials being sourced locally where possible. Six bore holes of around 150m deep have been drilled to provide for ground source heating, while the roof will have a 132-panel solar array.

The energy produced will be used to power the building, to charge a bank of batteries and electric car charging bays, and to produce surplus energy that can be sold back to the National Grid. Meanwhile there will be a wildflower meadow outside, with existing trees maintained.

Simon Tregoning, owner and chairman of Sapphire Holidays, said: “With this repurposed building we’ll be able to consolidate all our teams on one site and cater for the future growth of the business. We wanted to reuse an existing unit because sustainability is very important to us, so it’s been designed to rigorous energy efficiency standards.”

The new office has been designed by Truro-based KAST Architects, who also designed neighbouring Sapphire House. The build is being managed by Ian Cavley, of Newquay’s IC Building Consultancy, who also worked on Sapphire House.

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