HOLIDAYMAKERS booking cottages with a Burford lettings firm have donated £3,000 to help conserve the Cotswolds.

Manor Cottages, which handles lettings for 250 holiday homes in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, raised the money in six months after joining the Cotswolds Visitor Giving Scheme when it was launched last year.

The aim is to encourage visitors to support work to look after the natural environment of the Cotswolds.

Manor Cottages’ owner, Chris Grimes, said: “We joined the scheme when it was launched by the Cotswolds Conservation Board as a way of putting something back into the environment and helping visitors to connect to the Cotswolds landscape.

“The process is simple. When a customer makes a booking via our website, we request a donation to the scheme of £1, which more than 80 per cent of our customers agree to do. “We then match that with another £1 and it soon builds up to a significant amount.”

He added: “The tourism industry relies on the Cotswolds being a beautiful place to visit and this is such an easy way to raise money to help conserve and enhance the Cotswolds, that I would encourage other tourism businesses to consider doing the same.”

Gloucestershire lettings firm Notgrove Holidays has raised another £750 for the scheme and five other companies have signed up so far.

Two conservation projects have already received £500 grants from the proceeds of the scheme.

The Cotswolds Rivers Trust, based in Shipton-under-Wychwood, installed flow deflectors in the River Coln, near Bibury, in Glou-cestershire, to improve the habitat.

And the World Land Trust carried out woodland coppicing work at the Kites Hill nature reserve, near Painswick Beacon.

Tourism businesses interested in joining the Cotswolds Visitor Giving Scheme should call Simon Smith, of the Cotswolds Conservation Board, on 01451 862031 or email him at simon.smith@cotswoldsaonb.org.uk