PaddleTime open location on the Thames designed to make canoeing 'accessible to all'

The owners and founders of kayaking tour company New Forest Activities, who have operated on the Beaulieu River in The New Forest for almost two decades, have a brand new venture launching in rural Wiltshire.

PaddleTime seeks to make canoeing and paddling much more accessible to everyone, not just those with some grounding in the activity. In fact, it'll be available for anyone (provided you're over 18 months old…). They're currently recruting to fill six positions.

The very first PaddleTime location is on the Thames at the National Trust-run Buscot and Coleshill Estate, just outside of Swindon. It's around an hour from both Reading and Oxford.

Rich Pearsall, co-founder of PaddleTime, says this about the venture: "A positive that the pandemic brought to us was that more and more people were exploring where they live. This led to people also holidaying in the UK and resulted in us having our busiest year ever at New Forest Activities."

"We made it our mission to find other stunning locations across the UK to offer what we do. And so, PaddleTime was born. We’re really excited about our first site at Buscot and can’t wait to discover and open up even more locations across the UK. Of course to do that, we will need people who are just as passionate about canoeing, paddling and just being out on the water and in nature as we are."

‘Our canoeing sessions really are, and always have been, our bread and butter”, says Sam Sutton, the other half of PaddleTime. "They’re by far our most popular and in-demand activity and our customers really do have the time of their lives."

"We’ve been absolutely spoiled with our beautiful location in Beaulieu with New Forest Activities and now having the Thames to explore too we’re excited about what PaddleTime is going to offer."

PaddleTime are looking to recruit for six new roles running the site. For more information about any of the job opportunities (there are two senior roles running the Wiltshire operation and three/four instructor roles), you can email them on: [email protected].

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