Case study: Improving water efficiency and saving overheads at The Apple Inn and Stablewood Coastal Cottages
5th June 2026
Stablewood Leisure is a family-owned group of businesses focused on the provision of “excellent leisure facilities” across Northumberland. The group includes the highly popular Apple Inn in Lucker and 40 holiday cottages in the area.
We sat down with Operations Director, Johny Johnson, to understand how moving to Everflow has benefitted a hospitality and leisure business like his.
The Apple Inn in Lucker is a National Family Business of the Year award winner and destination pub known across the region for great food and an even better atmosphere – all just minutes from the tourist attractions such as Bamburgh Castle and the Northumberland coastline.
With a busy pub, two guest rooms above the pub, seven suites in the nearby School House and five beautifully crafted Shepherd’s Huts, Johny and his team welcome hundreds of guests through their doors each week. Like all leisure and hospitality businesses this means that utilities usage can be intensive but also seasonal.
Having seen a steady increase in water bills over the course of a number of years, Johny was introduced to Everflow in 2019 and realised that there was an opportunity to make significant savings across the water bills for his premises. Johny says:
“Over the last few years, utility costs have gone up across the board and it’s become increasingly difficult for hospitality and leisure businesses like ours to manage overheads. But we’ve worked hard to look for any savings we could get and when we first started working with Everflow we realised that we had been overpaying for our water.”
As well as helping Stablewood Leisure to secure competitive water contracts, Johny also says that the help he has received to conserve water has played a big role in managing bills in recent years thanks to Everflow’s EcoMOT service, which identifies opportunities for leak fixes, energy savings and water saving devices.
Johny says:
“It’s not easy to monitor usage across the pub and our holiday cottages but Everflow have helped us to put smart meters in place to do this more effectively. They also helped us to implement a range of other improvements, such as toilet flush reduction and tap restrictors. We have also now installed shower flow regulators across many of our properties to ensure that, while our guests still enjoy a powerful shower, we don’t waste excess water.”
Across the rooms at The Apple Inn, Everflow’s EcoMOT service identified savings of 330 litres per day, as well as half a tonne of CO2e per year and 3,000 KwH of electricity. In cash terms, this equates to an estimated saving of £700 per year.
Johny concludes:
“There are still a number of holiday cottages we’ve yet to make improvement to. But we’ve been very happy with the results we’ve seen so far – it saves us money as a business and helps us to be more environmentally friendly.”
Want to find out how we can help you lower your bills and reduce water consumption. Get a water quote now or click to find out more about our EcoMOT service.
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