Newlands Park (Mobile Home Site)

Debate between Ian Lavery and Anne Main

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mrs Riordan. The debate is very important for my constituents. There are more than 2,000 park home sites in the UK. They are often populated by elderly residents, with many sites having a minimum near-retirement age, so the residents on the sites are often at the more vulnerable end of the spectrum. It is a shame to say that in this day and age the spirit of Rachmanism—a synonym for the exploitation and intimidation of tenants by unscrupulous landlords—is alive and well and stalking some of the mobile home parks of the UK, and certainly the one in St Albans that is the subject of this debate. I suspect that it is not an isolated case, but it is what I want to focus on today. I sent the Minister a list of the points that I wish to raise. In this half-hour debate, I will come up with a shopping list of questions that I would like answers to, and I accept that the Minister may wish to respond to some of them in writing later.

The Government had the best of intentions when they introduced the new Mobile Homes Act 2013 as a result of concerns raised by hon. Members of all parties about abuse by park home owners. It was said that malpractice was widespread across the park homes sector, and that the law was inadequate because it neither deterred unscrupulous park home site owners from exploiting residents, nor provided local authorities with effective powers to monitor and improve conditions. I am still amazed that there are no restrictions on who can own a park homes site, and the issuing of a licence is often a mere formality. Having a long criminal record or even a record of malpractice on other sites does not necessarily bar someone from the industry. When a site owner fails to comply with the conditions of the licence, it is the responsibility of the local authority to prosecute.

Unfortunately, the Mobile Homes Act simply gave powers to a council to prosecute. It did not impose any duties. Today’s debate shows that those powers, if not used, might as well not exist. My residents were hopeful that the Act would deliver improvements for them. Sadly, that has not happened.

I will give the Minister a shopping list of issues that my residents face that they find it difficult to get redressed. The main problem is that the Newlands park residents are routinely described as troublemakers. The residents have banded together to form an association, and they have complied with all the residents association regulations in paragraph 28 of schedule 1, part 3, of the amended Mobile Homes Act 1983. They even sent a letter of their intention to form a residents association, believing that they had fully complied with requirements. However, the Golby family who ran the site, which they inherited from Mr Golby senior, had very different views as to the validity of the association.

On 1 September 2010, the secretary sent a letter informing the family of the association. It stated that

“The...membership list and constitution are available for inspection by appointment with the Secretary”

at the request of the family at any time. The association asked for a formal acknowledgment of its status, but the letter it received was far from a formal acknowledgment. It said:

“Please find...a copy of a letter from your so called Residents Association of Newlands Park.”

It then went on to talk about putting up rents and warned about people who did not pay rents. It concluded:

“We feel certain residents are trying to cause friction on the Park, so please be aware before thinking of joining any sort of Association because we, the Partners...are here for you to speak to...If you feel you need to speak to us in private you can always put a note into the office.

We would like to wish...all the residents at Newlands Park a happy and healthy New Year.”

I do not think that the residents felt healthy when their wish to join a residents association was not acknowledged, and they do not feel happy about their dealings with the Golby family. The letter was received after they sent a politely worded request to have their residents association acknowledged. The residents say they feel intimidated and harassed, and they have reported the matter to the council. The residents then got another letter warning them to disband.

The council says it received allegations that the site owner’s family had not been on site as often as they should, and also

“intermittent recurrent reports of bad language, arguments and intimidating behaviour”.

The residents have a lot of concerns, and the only way that they can get their opinions across is by going through the residents association, but it appears that Mr Golby and his family do not recognise the association’s existence.

I spoke to Mr Golby today. Again, he mentioned troublemakers. He said he did not recognise the residents association, did not know all the names, and did not have enough information, even though the residents association had said it was happy for him to have any names and information that he wished to have. The association did not get a response to its letter, and I do not believe that Mr Golby has ever asked to meet it.

The residents are trying to fight back and assert their rights. They say they are a qualifying residents association, and the park owner is not entitled to discourage or stop any residents who wish to belong to an association. That should be the case. Elderly, vulnerable residents should not be warned against joining associations by the landlord. I cannot think what he has to fear if he is a responsible landlord. Perhaps that is why the few who are interested in having an active residents association and dialogue with the owners are labelled troublemakers.

“Dialogue” is a loose word. There are two lines of communication on the site. Three telephone numbers are posted on a notice board: mobile telephone numbers of family members. The council knows that those numbers are available and believes that that is adequate communication. When residents call, the phones are rarely answered, or the conversation is terminated by the call being cut off. There is also an office, but it acts merely as a drop-box, so letters often go unrecognised or unanswered for a considerable period. When residents raised that point with the council, it said that it was aware of complaints about correspondence:

“We currently await responses to some test correspondence that we sent there and will be taking this up with the owner in due course.”

Three Rivers council, which covers this area of my constituency, looks spineless, as far as I am concerned. It seems to take any assurances given by Mr Golby and his family that everything is absolutely fine. It is not. The council sent test correspondence; Erle Jackson, the officer dealing with the matter, says that the correspondence was sent a month ago and has still not been acknowledged by the partners. That is exactly what my residents experience.

I went to the site and there is a tiny shoebox of an office. Things are not collected regularly. There are no opening times on the office door. If I were a resident and went along at 10 o’clock on a Tuesday, I would not know whether somebody would be there to talk to me about any issues. That should flag up something to the council, which, as of today, has still not had a response to its communication. The lines of communication are not as adequate as the Golbys assured the council—and me, today—they were. It is obvious that they are not adequate, and I am told that Mr Golby and the other partners, who I believe are his sisters, cut off the conversation if it is not to their liking. Today, Mr Golby could be heard by my staff in an adjoining office. He was rather voluble and agitated at being pressed on some of these matters, and he said, “Thank you very much”, and cut off the phone call. I understand that that is common treatment for my residents, and they are at their wits’ end, which is why they came to me.

We should do better by park home residents. The council’s standards state:

“The name, address and telephone number of the site licence holder or their representative...should be prominently displayed.”

Well, there are three mobile phone numbers displayed. The standards also state:

“details must be sufficient to facilitate emergency contact at any time.”

I do not call putting the phone down and taking a month to respond to a letter being in compliance with that licensing detail.

Residents tell me that when they have discussions with Mr Golby, it is often at a volume that they find oppressive, and includes language that they find insulting and harassing, and one elderly lady told me that Mr Golby even burst into her unlocked caravan one day, mouthing foul expletives—

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

Very briefly, as I have a large list to get through.

[Ian Lavery]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. Can she say whether she has more than one mobile park home in her constituency, and if so, is that a common way for the owners to treat people?

[Mrs Main]

I have several mobile home parks in my constituency. I have two in the area that I am talking about, which is covered by Three Rivers district council; the other one is perfectly well run. I have three others in the St Albans city and district council area, and they are absolutely fine as well. The one that I am talking about is an example of bad practice in running a park home, as far as I know. I cannot say that I have been to visit every park. There was one park site in my area that had some trees that needed pruning—it was a council site—and eventually those trees were pruned.

As I was saying, one elderly lady at the site said to me that this gentleman—Mr Golby—burst into her caravan, which was not locked, and uttered foul expletives because she had dared to raise a concern. The council acknowledges that there have been recurrent reports of bad language, arguments and intimidating behaviour, but it goes on to respond—