Is Parks Holidays UK, the new owners of Martello Beach caravan site heading for a legal clash with the people of Pevensey Bay?—Bay Life, 13 August 2017
THIS WEEK IN BAY LIFE, ONLINE AND IN PRINT: Are we headed for some kind of legal action by the people of Pevensey Bay against the new owners of the Martello Beach caravan site?
As Park Holidays UK take over ownership of the Martello Beach site, we look at the question of parked vans all around the roads close to the site that should be parked at Martello Beach by the caravan owners.
We understand that the owners of the caravans say they are holidaymakers paying fees of over £5,000 for their plots at Martello Beach, but the site owners says that no commercial vehicles are allowed at the site.
We have all been there, or at least some of us who are now residents, have been there, we were once owners of caravans at the site. We love the site, the people and the buzz and business that the site brings the Bay for a large part of the year, but with the buzz has come a problem that is getting bigger by the hour.
Are the owners of vans with signage entitled to park their vans beside their caravans or not?
If the owners are on holiday and they have come with their families to enjoy the home from home atmosphere of the site, why would they not be allowed to park next to their caravans?
The arguments have now reached boiling point as residents and caravan owners clash.
Outside a number of homes, residents open their curtains each day to the sight of a van parked outside their home that they know is not their own. Sometimes the vans stay for days. Sometime they lead to arguments that have seen the Police called, Wealden Council called, East Sussex Highways called.
What is happening? Something simple that apparently none of the authorities want to consider, but that might be all about to change.
A statement on the Martello Beach caravan profile online says that ‘no commercial vehicles are allowed’.
When is a commercial vehicle not a commercial vehicle? The answer is that we are in a interesting legal area, becaue it looks very much like the people of Pevensey Bay are about to call into question what the owners of Martello Beach, to date, have said.
Ask the owners and apparently their response is “this is the law”. The reference, to be specific is to council legislation, and to be specific which council legislation might that be?
Owners are entitled to use their vehicles for personal reasons and their families holidaying in Pevensey Bay are they not?
Who is to say that the vans can not not be parked next to their caravans. With plot fees of £5,000 a year are they not entitled to park their vans next to the caravans?
Apparently not according to the owners of Martello Beach. They state on their web platform that commercial vehicles can not be parked on the site.
Are the owners right?
What seems much more likely is that the site owners do not want to see commercial vans parked next to caravans because of the perception of the site.
Could we be forgiven for thinking that the big question here is money? Perhaps in promoting the park to new potential owners, who have to pay plot fees of over £5,000 for the year, the sight of commercial vans is not the best profile to put in their glossy brochures.
And what might that profile be exactly?
All the hard working people who have come to Pevensey Bay to enjoy all our delights are many and various.
A number of these people have their own vans and work for companies. If they are utilising the vans to transfer their families to the site, should they not be allowed to park their vans next to their caravans? What is wrong with that, Park Holidays UK might like to answer?
The net result is that we now have a big problem in and around the roads next to the Maretllo Beach site.
In one example we have a resident who has said that he has had so many run-ins with the owners of the site and vans parked outside his house that he is in despair. He has phoned the Police, and Wealden Council and said that ‘nobody wants to know”.
In another example we have a lady whose husband has come out of hospital and needs access to his car and driveway, at key times he has found his driveway blocked.
In a third example, our favourite, in one of the roads close by, an ambulance turned up twice in one evening for what appeared to be an emergency. A van parked outside with the coolest signage in the world, that had been in the same place for three days, meant that the ambulance had to park to one side and ferry the man a little further.
The family had already phoned the Police to try and get the van moved, had other members of the family, who live locally, arrived to support the emergency in some way, there would have been a few problems getting access to the home easily. What was clear about the question was the van parked outside the home of the man concerned did not help things
The next morning the company concerned was phoned. They were asked to get the van moved. They apologised and contacted the man who owned the van. He turned up ten minutes later, on a child’s bike, wearing his wrap round sunglasses (and why not?), looked at the road and said, “don’t lie to me, there was not a problem with the ambulance. I can park wherever I like, unless you have signage at the front of this road, I can park wherever I like.”
That was a friendly interlude, and although he did not take his wrap round sunglasses off, we liked him when we talked to him.
“I will move the van”, he said. putting the child’s bike back in the van, “but I don’t have to”.
The exchange told us a number of things, first he was a decent bloke, second the child’s bike told us that he was here with his family, and third, if he was paying over £5,000 plot fees, given the circumstances, finding himself having to park away from the site, he acted with more than a degree of grace.
The circumstances have become critical.
We know of one resident who is considering a national petition to rid the roads of the vehicles that should be parked up next to caravans on the Martello Beach site. That is clearly something that the new owners of the site, Park Holidays UK would want to avoid.
The same resident has said to us “an alternative course of action is a class action by the people of Pevensey Bay against the owners, on the basis that they are being negligent” .
The possibility of action with all the bad publicity that may emerge about the question, is something the company may not relish.
“Come to sunny Martello Beach, pay us £5,000 a year, enjoy all the benefits we have to offer and the delights of Pevensey Bay, but if you have a vehicle with your name on it anywhere, then will have to park somewhere else’, does not quite have the ring to it that will work as a strapline does it?
Next week we talk to all the concerned parties, getting the views of residents, caravan owners and owners of the site, together with Wealden Council and East Sussex Highways.
The people of Pevensey Bay have clearly had enough now and are preparing for action of some description because they want their driveways unblocked.
If nothing is done we may be heading for some kind of national dimension to the problem, which presumably is that last thing that Park Holidays UK would want.
The answer would appear to be simple. In our view Park Holidays UK should let the hard working people who have paid them all that money park their vehicles next to their caravans.
If the vehicles have an element of signage, so be it.
The legal action, if such action emerges, might become a test case of some description, which we would guess is the last thing Park Holidays UK would want, since they only got here last week.
Simon Montgomery
editor, Bay Life
