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Elephants Feel at Home with Lpg at Woburn Safari Park

Calor Gas is providing lp gas to Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire to keep both animals and visitors alike warm and comfortable.

Opened in 1970, Woburn Safari Park near Milton Keynes in Bedfordshire is the second oldest safari park in the UK. Today, Woburn is an award winning family attraction that strives to make positive and important contributions to the conservation of endangered species and receives international recognition as a centre of excellence in this field.

Most of the animal species that Woburn looks after are not native to the UK, so require specialist indoor environments more akin to their natural climates to make them feel more at home and help them thrive. This means that the animal enclosures that house the animals must provide a more temperate climate than the cold British weather.

Maintaining appropriate conditions for animals, such as elephants and rhinos, within their enclosures requires a reliable and dependable source of energy. But Woburn Safari Park, like nearly two million other UK homes and businesses, is located off the national natural gas grid.

Woburn therefore required a source of power reliable enough for the vital job of supplying heating and energy for the animal enclosures, but also affordable and versatile enough for use throughout the park in areas, such as restaurant catering, the children’s indoor play centre and the leisure area.

Electric radiant heaters initially powered the safari park but, over time, it was found that these did not meet the heating needs of the animals.

Paul Williams, estate and property manager at Woburn, explained: “After two years, we simply found that the electric system didn’t match our requirements. The performance was generally poor, taking a long time to heat the spaces, and the cost was excessive.” Woburn turned to its buying cooperative Anglia Farmers to help find a solution for its energy needs. It was decided that lpg gas from supplier Calor Gas Ltd was the most suitable solution for a number of reasons.

Clarke Willis, managing director at Anglia Farmers, said: “We felt that for Woburn lpg offered an ideal solution. It is versatile, which is obviously important but, when animal welfare is at stake, the security of supply from a brand leader is also key.”

Upon switching, Woburn says the advantages of lp gas quickly became apparent. Paul Williams said: “We noticed the difference straightaway. Firstly, the spaces heat up to the required temperatures far more quickly. As well as simply being convenient, this has a working benefit to us, as we may be required to move animals to an inside space at short notice. With lpg, we can minimise any delays.

“The second thing we noticed was the price. We were saving approximately 50 per cent on our annual energy bill for this enclosure. It’s really important for us to save costs where we can, as any additional funds can then be ploughed into our conservation work so, from our perspective, lpg gas is a marked improvement on its predecessor. It was great working with both Anglia Farmers and Dravo to ensure that we could create the best possible environments for our animals.”

Dravo, a Northampton-based industrial and commercial warm air heating equipment company, installed the lpg-powered nozzle distribution warm air system in Woburn’s elephant enclosure.

Neville Parsons, managing director at Dravo, said: “We were approached by Woburn specifically to find the perfect heating solution for its elephant house. At the time, Woburn had recently started using Calor lp gas, which we find to be a good fuel source for our systems as it is clean burning and versatile. The feedback we have had from Woburn has been fantastic. It seems our heating system is suiting them very well.”

Contact Calor Gas Ltd on 08000 224150 www.calor.co.uk

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