licensed caravan park

[martyn brandrick]

An issue has arisen over a licensed caravan park where the owner has leased out plots which have then had homes built on them. These homes are basically static  caravan units, either single or two joined together, with a roof and a low wall built round the base. They are owner-occupied, not holiday lets or similar, mostly occupied year round as the owner's home.
 
The problem is that the individual owners have built porches, patios, decks and sheds and carports around them so that the gap between each has been substantially reduced. The Council are treating this as a breach of the site's licensing conditions and are trying to find a way of resolving it without resorting to enforcement action, so far without success.
 
The standard breached is the one about spacing. Council's license conditions require a six metre space between caravans on this type of site, but so far no-one can settle whether these should be counted as caravans on a site or as separate private dwellings. In addition there is some doubt whether the spacing condition is to prevent fire spread, making that condition subject to Section 71 of the Act (Scotland), or if this was a condition to ensure a decent amenity space i.e. was it intended to be a fire safety measure or not.  It looks like its a fire safety condition. If this is the case how can the Fire Service enforce this in a private dwelling, or do we go after the site owner?

[Midland Retty]

Intresting one this.

RR(FS) O 2005 only applies to communial / commons parts of the caravan site. This technically could include the individual "gardens" or "outside leisure spaces" between the park homes.

The reason I say that is that of all the park homes Ive visited the park home owners dont really have any claim to the land in between the caravans, that is to say they only pay rent on the land directly occupied by each individual home and not the land in between. So therefore it still could be considered as a common part of the site.

In my brigade we agreed that the local authorty Public Protection unit would deal with the structures between homes, and we would deal with common areas, fire alarm, PFFE, fire risk assessment etc etc

According to "model standards for park homes" nothing combustible should be allowed in between the 6m spacing of park homes.

Also refer to BRE Information paper ref IP15/91 "Fire Spread between Caravans / Park homes" which goes into this more indepth.

Also the Caravan Sites and Control of  Development Act 1960  Model Standards - chapters 8 to 14 are normally the issues referred to are usually enforced by a fire authority using the RRO.

I dont think park homes could be classed a single domestic dwellings however (even though common sense would dictate they probably are if owned outright by the residents and only a ground rent is paid)

The reason they weren't classified as SDP is I believe is because of the nature of their construction... not permanent structures as such... tehrefore escape certain planning and building control stipulations.

[PhilB]

RRFSO does not apply to Scotland Retty.

[Midland Retty]

RRFSO does not apply to Scotland Retty.

Ahhh yeah... good point... erm sorry about that ! :p

[The Colonel]

Had an almost identical situation in South Wales where the local council and the fire authority had long standing problems with a residential home park. When new owners bought the park they were aware of the problem and were indiscussion wth the authories and park tenants.

There were some serious breeches of site conditions and licence, some homes with extensions were as little as 2m apart and many had been in place for years. When a new licence was issued some years ago a time linit to sort things was given but nothing was done. The local council and fire authority were looking to escort the new owners to court as they deemed it there problem. For there part the new owners were happy to go to court as they could then do the same to the home owners. It was a real problem that had the local MP and Welsh Assembly members involved as well.

Muggings here after studying all the guidance and research undertook the fire risk assessment for the owners which covered everything from spacing through to the boundry hedges and all risk areas also included something called common sense but even then things did not look good. A previous report on the site by a well known author in the 1990's even suggested 3m high block walls between units to solve the problem, nice view concrete.

As far as I know it is still ongoing but i also understand that other councils around the country are prepared to take sites to court over similar issues.

One interesting bit, the council wishing to sort the site out and move homes is also the same one that has been giving grants to home owners for new roofs, left hand not knowing what right one is doing or what. 90% of the 130 homes had new roofs when I was there