Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely has welcomed new measures that will better protect mobile home residents from rogue caravan park owners.
Under the new measures, councils will be given greater powers to tackle bad practice and exploitation of residents, such as failure to address residents’ complaints or anti-social behaviour by site owners – with strong enforcement against those who don’t comply.
Managers or owners of mobile home sites will have to pass a new ‘fit and proper person’ test to prove they are suitable for the job. It will be an offence to operate a site without having a fit and proper manager in place, or to provide false information in an application. Anyone found breaching these rules will be taken to court and could face an unlimited fine.
Mr Seely said:
“Sadly, I have witnessed intimidating – and generally unreasonable – behaviour from a small minority of caravan park owners towards mobile homeowners.
“This is completely unacceptable and sadly many mobile homeowners don’t have the resources behind them to fight against these bullies.
“Thankfully, these rogue park owners and managers are rare, but I welcome these tighter measures that will empower councils to tackle their behaviour and hopefully prevent them from being in a position of power in the first place.”
Eddie Hughes MP, Minister for Rough Sleeping and Housing said:
“Every park home resident deserves a safe, secure and affordable place to live. That is why we have taken this important step to drive up standards across the country.
“By introducing a fit and proper person test for site operators, we are strengthening councils’ powers to tackle bad practice and to ensure that residents are protected from exploitation by a minority of rogue site owners.”
Councils have until 1st July to prepare to receive applications from site owners. Site owners can start submitting their applications from 1st July 2021 and have until 1st October 2021 to do so.
Why doesn’t Seely get that dirty caravan/truck removed from Knighton Down, which has been parked there for well over a year, and has even made a scruffy garden around it in a public parking place.
God knows where they do their business. Disgusting, imagine if every poor hippy type did such
I think Bob should looking into why crime is increasing here, not this
Didn’t the council cut some kids care for six months that caused them to have more seizures? Yet the MP is using his power and platform to combat this…I suppose this is an easy political victory compared to helping a child get treatment so power to this brave MP for standing up to these rouge park owners. What would the island do without their fearless leaders to lead the charges against injustice.
It would have been more useful to get the law changed so that owners who do not have permanent residential rights are afforded the same protection that residential owners currently enjoy. What Seeley is proposing does nothing to protect these people from being booted off a site when their caravan reaches a certain age.
You are talking about vans on holiday parks which are not designated mobile homes. If you buy a holiday caravan you have a contract with the caravan park. If you don’t like the terms of the contract, don’t buy a caravan there. Residential mobile homes differ in manufacture from holiday vans, they have to meet more stringent build quality, such as better insulation. People who legally live in a residential mobile home with a licence to live in it permanently is what is at issue, to protect them from unscrupulous site owners who break the law in hounding people in their own homes.