Park Homes

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Annette Brooke]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I shall return to that in more detail, but today we are discussing the crunch of the matter.

Park homes can provide an idyllic community, but community strength can develop in a different way on the minority of sites where there is an unscrupulous operator, who may well bully, intimidate, harass and even defraud vulnerable people. People in adversity will often stick together. However, in some cases, that sense of community cannot develop because park home owners can become too frightened to be seen even talking to their neighbours. I must emphasise that the points that I shall make are directed at a minority of park home site owners. There are excellent, well managed park home sites in my constituency, and I do not wish to suggest that all site owners engage in bad practices.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I add my voice of commendation to those who have praised the hon. Lady’s excellent work. Even some of the bigger firms that run park home estates, such as the one I have in my constituency, are not above a bit of sharp practice. I shall give two examples that she might like to consider. There is a great reluctance to recognise residents’ associations—for example, there have been demands for lists of all the people who are going to sign up rather than merely requesting sight of a list and people not then being able to take it away, which I believe is the legal position. In one case, there was even a claim that a letter sent to the park home owner complaining about certain conditions libelled the park home owner. Of course, one cannot libel someone by sending a letter to that person if one does not publish it to anyone else. However, ordinary people might not be able to cope with such tactics without the assistance of their MPs.

[Annette Brooke]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend’s points. I endorse the point that residents’ associations can in principle be formed, but that they are in practice often obstructed. That relates to my point about people being frightened to be seen talking to others on the park home site.

There are good site owners. However, a minority of site owners make legislation difficult and I hope that the outcome of this debate will be a stiffened resolve to tackle the issues, rather than just saying that they are too difficult. I am extremely pleased that the Government have committed to bringing in secondary legislation to transfer jurisdiction for park homes to the Residential Property Tribunal Service. That will undoubtedly help solve some of the problems that park home owners have been faced with and will remove the need for an expensive court process in many cases.

A recent case I am trying to deal with could potentially be solved through that route. Let me mention it briefly. A park home was purchased in May this year. The new owner wanted to make improvements and applied for an insulation grant for her mobile home from the local authority, and the local authority granted it. There is a clause in the site agreement with the site owner of this particular site that any works to the exterior of a mobile home require the express permission of the site owner. Somewhere along the line, the site owner has requested that the park home owner agrees to her home being re-sited. She has refused to do that and the site owner will not give permission for the insulation to take place. The local authority has confirmed to me that there is no technical reason why the work on the home cannot be carried out in its current position. The tribunal offers the opportunity for both sides to put their case and for all aspects to be considered. Unfortunately for my constituency, this route is not yet open, which is yet another reason why we cannot delay.

Last winter, the electricity supply on a site was faulty on the coldest night of the year. It was not restored in a reasonable time, and an 84-year-old was taken to hospital with hypothermia the next day. Purbeck district council, bravely for a small council, took the site owner to court. The site owner was found guilty and fined £1,000 with £6,000 costs. We could say that we won the battle, but not the war. My worry is that more bullying may follow.