New hotel at Denbies Wine Estate aims to be carbon neutral

The £4m hotel set to open at Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey in July aims to be carbon neutral.

Located near Dorking within England's largest vineyard, the 17-bedroom property will focus on establishing best practice in green tourism.

Architect Tony Oke, who designed Denbies Winery in the early 1990s, has created a building to blend into the natural surroundings of the North Downs and Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with high level thermal installation and low energy lighting, creating maximum energy efficiency with minimum heat loss.

Solar panels have been installed to generate power that will feed into three 5kw Tesla batteries and any excess energy will be fed back into the grid and re-used. Electric car charging points and cycle parking facilities have been installed to encourage visitors to use sustainable transport methods.

Oke said: "This recent building process has been very different from the original Denbies Wine Estate design, as the technology to design and produce a carbon neutral building was nowhere near as advanced 30 years ago. As technology has advanced, so the commitment to sustainable practice has evolved."

Owned by the White family, Denbies Wine Estate has 265 acres of vines within a wide 635-acre estate, accounting for 10% of the UK's plantings.

The hotel, which will feature the Vineyard restaurant, is being part funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.

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