Brandon Lewis
Main Page: Brandon Lewis (Conservative - Great Yarmouth)(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes
That is exactly what I was about to come to—namely, park home owners not being able to sell their homes without the consent of the park owner. In the intervening 12 months there has been progress, not least by the all-party parliamentary group and, earlier this month, when the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) asked the Prime Minister an important question about the actions of unscrupulous park owners. However, I and many of the hon. Members present at the debate today believe that action must be not only robust but swift. Many park home owners are elderly, and they fear that they are running out of time.
I am extremely impressed by the phenomenal work of Sonia McColl, the leader of the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign, who has campaigned tirelessly for the rights of park home owners and worked unceasingly to collect and collate the national statistics on park homes, which the campaign presented to the Prime Minister in October. The statistics are sobering: 63% of residents reported living under unacceptable conditions, with 48% living under the regime of an unscrupulous park owner.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) has already said, that there are a number of good park owners, such as in Great Yarmouth? An important feature of the problem is that the bad park owners give the entire industry a bad reputation, while negatively affecting the good park owners who deserve the credibility that they should have for providing a good environment in which people live.
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The good park home site owners are unfairly gaining a poor reputation because of their less scrupulous counterparts, many of whom are reported to be not only dishonest in their dealings with park home owners but aggressive and abusive. It is sad that only a third of residents felt that their park owner was good. That clearly needs to change.