Agenda item

To consider a report by the Development Manager (Planning and Public Protection) (copy enclosed) on the progress made to date with developing a caravan sites strategy for the County, and on effective enforcement through negotiation with caravan site owners.

A report by the Development Manager, Planning and Public Protection (DM), which stemmed from Members' concerns on the perceived use of holiday caravan sites for residential use and the potential consequential loss of income for the Council, had been circulated with the papers for the meeting.

The Head of Planning and public Protection (HPP) introduced the report and explained that a pilot project to assess the scope of the problem had identified the complexity of the work and the potential implications of sudden stringent enforcement on a number of Council departments and on individuals who may be 'living' on some sites.  This pilot had also highlighted that a gap existed in routine information sharing between the service provider arm of the Council and its regulatory services - routine information sharing may avert the escalation of the problem over time and assist with the calculation of population figures which affected the amount of Revenue Support Grant (RSG) awarded to the Council.

As a result of the Committee's earlier recommendation that resources be made available to take the project forward, the Corporate Executive Team (CET) had asked the Business Improvement and Modernisation Service to source data from all Council departments on individuals who had given caravan parks as their address when applying for services or concessions.  Through the initial pilot work it had become apparent that there was a need for the Council's regulatory services to work with some caravan site owners to support them to better manage their sites and comply with the conditions granted to them.

Details of the progress made since December, 2014, and the findings of an initial trawl of the pilot group, had been included in Appendix 1 a confidential document.

In January, 2015 a meeting had been held with a major caravan park owner to explain the nature of the Council project, and Appendix 2 provided a summary of the meeting.  Officers from Denbighshire and Conwy had also met to discuss the nature of the project, the scale of the problem and the potential for collaborative work on a “Site Monitoring” protocol. 

The HPP and DM responded to Members' questions and advised that:-

·  individual caravans situated in the gardens of private dwellings were not included within the current project, as the majority of these in Denbighshire were an ancillary part of the main dwelling;

·  chalets were covered by the same planning and licensing laws as caravans;

·  if holiday caravan site owners were permitting caravan owners to live on their sites for the entire duration of their licence e.g. 10 months etc. and those caravan owners could not supply a 'home' address elsewhere, both the site owner and the caravan owner could be liable for prosecution on the grounds that the site was not complying with its planning and licensing conditions as a 'holiday' site, and the caravan owner for using a holiday caravan as their permanent abode;

·  the priority of the work going forward would be to stop people using their caravans as their permanent residence.  However, this would need to be managed effectively to limit the impact of enforcement action on individuals, some of whom were vulnerable.  There would also need to be contingency plans in place to deal with the consequences of any action on the Council itself i.e. people presenting themselves as homeless.  There may also be an issue around the quality of the caravans in comparison to the quality of housing available for the displaced caravan dweller and their 'financial' circumstances to secure alternative accommodation;

·  once the extent of the problem and the anticipated impact of stringent enforcement was clear a decision would need to be taken on what the Council should do with respect to historical breaches and what it would be doing in future to deal with breaches of conditions.  The cost of an all-encompassing enforcement policy could be extremely high and the fallout from it could potentially be unmanageable and damaging to the Authority's reputation;

·  there were 2 residential caravan sites in Denbighshire, in Rhyl and Prestatyn respectively;

·  caravan site owners were subject to National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) business rates.  This was calculated by the Valuation Office and collected centrally by the government, with a percentage of it returning to the County via the RSG settlement.  The local Authority was not therefore obliged to provide services such as refuse collection on these sites;

·  if breaches to planning or licensing laws were suspected Data Protection laws could not legitimately be used to withhold information;

·  the regulations pertaining to free bus passes had been changed earlier this year.  Individuals who now presented a caravan site as their permanent residence would not be eligible for a free bus pass;

·  compliance with caravan site regulations was not a problem that was unique to Denbighshire, the majority of local authorities seemed to be struggling with policing and enforcing the conditions granted.  It was also fair to say that some owners were self-regulating and complying with the conditions granted to them.

Members felt that there was a need to investigate the extent of the problem and the potential costs and impact of enforcement options, including perhaps consideration being given to having some sites designated dual use sites - holiday and residential use, but with a clear separation between the two areas of the sites.  They also felt that the work in relation to better regulation of caravan sites should be publicised widely.  Consequently the Committee:-

RESOLVED – that subject to the above observations:-

(a)            the Committee support the direction of the project to date and acknowledge the potential extent of the work in hand; and

(b)            the results of the scoping work and the draft strategy options for more effective regulation of caravan sites be presented to the committee in the summer of 2015.