By William Coleman
The nightmare holiday is not an uncommon story to hear when a friend or family member return from their travels. The travel agents or hotel owners never really do too much when things go wrong and do not seem to care either. But when it comes to caravan park site owners they are not big enough to hide behind their company and, thankfully, this park owner and management company are being held accountable for their actions.
The owner of a village caravan park have been dished out fines that are in the thousands after failing to fix ongoing issues that have left holiday makers with a less than stellar holiday experience. Guests at the site were faced with smells of raw sewage and intermittent water supplies during their stay.
Not wanting these kind of experiences to continue, and be profited from, Horsham District Council took action. The Council went on to say Luckista Grove Caravan Park failed to provide adequate living standards for residents.
The site also had issues with narrow roads that were littered with potholes that fill with water which lead to floods of muddy water whenever the heavens would open.
10 months after the order was given the work was still not done. The council felt that 10 months is more than enough time for the repairs to be completed. During that 10 months only 4 of the 12 works that needed competed were finished.
Royston Cooper who is the director of Frankham Real Estates, who own this site, was issued with a compliance notice back in 2017 due to the ongoing issues. Mr. Cooper and the estate agent admitted, in court, to the offenses of not fixing the issues. On Friday 22 of June they were fines a total of £15,000 plus legal fees as well as victim surcharges.
Tricia Youtan, Cabinet Member for Community and Wellbeing, said: “I was dismayed and disappointed to hear of these breaches. The council will not accept poor standards on caravan sites; they are the homes of residents and need to meet the established standards to ensure that they provide a pleasant and safe living environment.
“We gave the owners advice and guidance for over a year before the continuing poor standards led to the decision to take legal action. We will continue to closely monitor all such matters district-wide.”
It is good to see a council taken action against things like this. I just feel bad for people who had chosen the site for their leisure time.
