SCORES of mobile home owners risk losing their homes after a caravan site landlord gave them an ultimatum - upgrade your property or leave.

Haven Leisure delivered the bombshell by letter to dozens of mobile home owners at their Beacon Fell View Caravan Site in Longridge on Saturday.

Caravan owners, some of whom have sold their homes to live in the mobile properties, were left devastated by the news and are due to hold a protest meeting at the site on Sunday.

Haven's Caravan Sales Department said in a statement that the move is in line with the Voluntary Code of Practice they adhere to as members of official trade associations such as the National Caravan Council.

The code sets out a minimum period of tenure of 10 years from the date a caravan is first purchased as new - a time scale Haven claim they have "acted generously" by extending beyond the stated minimum.

But every caravan owner on the site claim their sales documents do not mention that they would have to 'upgrade or leave' after 10 years and that rule 15a of the National Caravan Council's code of practice states that no caravan should be removed from a site for the sole reason of age. One resident, who refused to be named, said: "Some caravan owners are heartbroken, especially the older ones, who have sold their homes to move into a caravan believing they will be here for the rest of their lives. Others are livid because they believe salesmen told them that they could stay on the site indefinitely, as long as their caravans were in good condition. No mention was made of the 10 year rule when they bought them."

He added: 'Many people have been on this site for more than 17 years and all the caravans are well-looked after and many have beautiful gardens. I'm lucky that my caravan is just a holiday home but I would never have parted with thousands if I'd been told about the 10 year rule."

A spokesperson for Haven added that the decision was regrettable and not taken lightly but followed an annual review undertaken by the general manager this year.

The site spokesperson said: "We hope that many of our holiday home owners will choose to upgrade their caravans and stay."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.