Ribble Valley caravan park ‘residents’ face eviction over new licence

Beacon Fell View Holiday Park, in Longridge, is owned by Hagan’s Leisure, which is applying for a new licence to run the site as a holiday park.

It means caravan owners will only be allowed to spend 46 weeks of the year on the site, rather than living there permanently.

Michael Daly, who has lived at Beacon Fell for nine years, said a new manager had recently been appointed and that the site’s rules had been changed.

He agreed that although the caravan owners realised that using Beacon Fell as a main residence was in breach of planning regulations, the rules had not been enforced by the council and that around 80 people could be forced to leave.

He said: “They have stopped mail being delivered and this has been custom and practice for about 20 years.

“Some people on the site pay council tax and they have been actively pursued by the council to pay it because they have been using it as their main residence.

“This has come about because when they bought the vans, the salesman said it was okay to live there.”

He said that some people living on the site had already been evicted and others had had their water cut off.

Some caravan owners are also on the electoral register and are now seeking legal advice.

Mr Daly, who is also chairman of the Caravan Owners’ Association, which was set up to respond to changes at the park, said: “If the licence was granted in July, then all the people that live on here who consider themselves residents of Longridge, will automatically be in breach of the licence.

“A lot of these caravans have been falsely sold.

“We want residential status and we also want Ribble Valley Council to take the residential status seriously for the people paying council tax.”

A Ribble Valley Council spokesman said: “The operators of the Beacon Fell View Caravan Park are responsible for how it is run and it is regrettable that people have apparently been living at the site, when its primary purpose is as a holiday park.”