A Center Parcs worker was killed when the bike she was riding was bumped into at just 9mph by a colleague on an electric buggy, an inquest has heard.
Penny Bulpitt sustained a ‘devastating’ head injury after she was hit from behind on a one-way road at the holiday park in Woburn Forest, near Ampthill in Bedfordshire.
A bin lorry driver who witnessed the crash described how housekeeping team leader Mrs Bulpitt, 67, who was not wearing a helmet, ‘flew in the air’ despite the speed of the converted golf cart being ‘very slow’.
Maintenance worker John Davies said he didn’t have enough time to take ‘evasive action’ before his buggy struck the grandmother as he turned onto the road on September 22, 2023.
‘As I completed the left turn, I suddenly saw a woman on a bicycle in front of my buggy,’ he said in a statement read out by a lawyer at the hearing in Ampthill.
‘My impression was that she was turning towards me. I was too close to her to have time to take evasive action, by braking or turning.’
Penny Bulpitt, 67, sustained a ‘devastating’ head injury after her work bike was hit from behind by an electric buggy driven by a colleague
Now 67 himself, Mr Davies said he had been left ‘in a state of shock and dumbfounded’ after the crash and ‘devastated’ by his co-worker’s death.
Mrs Bulpitt’s orange work bicycle had a trailer attached to the back which was used to carry items including towels and linens, the inquest heard.
Helmets were available for staff but they were general issue, rather than workers being given their own, and they were not always worn, coroner Bina Patel was told.
The converted left-hand golf buggy Mr Davies, of Flitwick, Bedfordshire, was driving had a large metal cabinet at the rear for storing tools and was fitted with a speed limiter that meant it couldn’t go faster than 10mph.
The accident happened outside a row of guest lodges on a road referred to by staff as Penny Lane, after the 1967 Beatles song.
A Center Parcs manager told the hearing that Mrs Bulpitt, of Luton, was a ‘very popular’ member of staff who had worked at the site for eight years.
The accident happened in September 2023 outside a row of guest lodges on a road referred to by staff as Penny Lane, after the 1967 Beatles song
Mr Davies appeared at Luton Crown Court in February this year accused of causing death by careless driving.
His trial was told that ‘approximately two seconds after turning’, his all-terrain Yamaha UTV crashed into Mrs Bulpitt’s bike, causing the ‘fatal fall’.
But he was cleared after the prosecutor had laid out the Crown’s case when Judge Michael Simon heard a submission that there was no case to answer.
Concluding there was insufficient evidence to proceed, he noted evidence from a PC indicated ‘a careful and competent driver might not have seen Mrs Bulpitt’.
This meant ‘the jury would be left no further forward in having reliable evidence upon which they could convict’.
Judge Simon added: ‘To describe this case as tragic really does not do it justice.’
The Woburn Forest Resort, one of six Center Parcs sites in the UK and Ireland, opened in 2014
In a statement issued after Mrs Bulpitt’s death, Center Parcs said: ‘We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of one of our team at Woburn Forest. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and her colleagues at this time.
‘We are in contact with her family, and we are offering support to them and any of our colleagues at Woburn Forest who have been affected.
‘Center Parcs is working closely with all the relevant authorities following this incident.’
Mrs Bulpitt’s family issued a tribute in which they said she was ‘loved by everyone who knew her’.
The Woburn Forest Resort is one of six Center Parcs sites in the UK and Ireland.
The first opened in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, in 1987. Woburn Forest has been running since 2014.
The inquest is due to conclude today.
