By William Coleman
Following some rather scathing news and reviews for the once great Butlin’s they have announced that they are planning on introducing 100 new caravans for staff members as part of their ongoing site development at their Minehead location.
This news follows checks done on current lodging that were deemed ‘beyond economical repair’. The current accommodation started to be demolished in May of this year.
At their Minehead site Butlin’s offer accommodation for guests within eight villages, one apartment block and one fully licenced caravan park.
Butlin’s also has two villages where staff stay during their time working on site. These locations offer 876 bedrooms of their 1300 full time and seasonal workers.
The famous holiday chain have submitted a planning application to Somerset West and Taunton Council to erect 98 three bed caravans to house staff.
This new development will be positioned on the eastern section of the site, Caribbean Quay Village, and should be able to serve 294 people.
A description on the design and access statement said: “The proposed development will see one empty land parcel arising from prior approval of demolition redeveloped to accommodate a replacement team village comprising 98 three-bedroom caravan units.
“Providing 294 bed spaces, each unit will be installed on a permanent base serviced with a network of utilities sufficient for proposed systems including LPG, water, date and electrical power, to meet the resort’s staff accommodation demands.”
The new leisure home will be positioned next to the Starfish Quay Village which is actually another staff site. Which also happens to be currently be under refurbishment.
An interesting note from the planning application states that these new caravans will not serve as permanent residential addresses but more as temporary location. We will see these caravans start to house guests who want caravan holidays?
While the plans state this will provide accommodation for 298 people, the overall total occupancy figure will be reduced by 498 people.
If approved, this will mean there will be 12,136 bed spaces across the holiday resort and 614 spaces below the resort’s maximum.
It is in my opinion that a lot of sites like Haven and Butlin’s will start to look at moving into the caravan industry as for them it is an untapped source of huge additional income.
As good as most caravan sites are they will find it hard to compete with some of the facilities on these sites should they start adding touring pitches.
If you could stay on a caravan site that has 2 pools, 4 restaurants, arcades, clubs, bars and large shops would you not jump at the chance?
I know a lot of what caravan trips are about is getting away from this sort of thing but there are a lot of people, especially with the newer and younger caravanners, who would love a resort bases caravan park. Just look at the Love2Stay site, that is doing amazingly well and is very much resort based.
