TWO holiday lodges in Catton have won an award for exceptionally high ratings from customer reviews.

Park House Lodges received the award from cottages.com after all the lodge’s visitors left glowing reviews.

Owner Helen Hilton said: “I put the lodge on cottages.com and they’ve been marketing it for me. “They’ve given me the ‘Customer’s Choice’ Award 2018 because the customers rated it so high. It was a bit of a shock!

“The lodge got a review rating of 9.5 or above every time we had someone stay.”

The two lodges are situated next to Helen’s house, just a short walk away from The Crown pub in the village.

Although there was fierce opposition to the lodges when they were initially planned, Helen says most of the residents now like them.

The lodges were built to allow disabled access, as Helen wants to offer holidays for people who normally would not be able to stay away from their home. Helen continued: “The reason I wanted to open this lodge cabin was because I wanted to offer respite. I built them all with disabled access, but I didn’t want them labelled as just that, so I opened them to the public.

“I want to use this to show that they’re doing really well, it’s to say they’re here for respite for people who are wheelchair bound and may struggle to find accommodation.

“I used to work in community care, working to adapt disabled people’s houses so they could stay there.

“In community care, if a family went on holiday people went into 24-hour care because that’s where people went for respite. One man said to me ‘they’ve had a great time in Florida, but I’ve had a glimpse into the future. Don’t let me go into there.’ That’s why I’m doing this.”