Park Home Owners Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Rebecca Smith
Main Page: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)Department Debates - View all Rebecca Smith's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing this important debate. There are clearly many issues facing park home residents across the country, and I want to touch briefly on two of them.
The first is the challenge around planning and sales problems. At Devon Oaks Park, a site in my constituency, it seems that the owner has effectively mis-sold properties on varying lengths of tenancy. When it is found that he has breached the planning conditions, it is the residents who are impacted, not the park owner. Dartmoor national park is rightly seeking to enforce those conditions, but many residents will be made homeless if that issue cannot be resolved.
I would be interested to know what the Minister has in mind, particularly for the review being done on the commission. Could that review look at planning and tenancy length? Ultimately, people choose to live in park homes permanently, but they can end up on a site with a time limit, or one where some properties are on a time limit and some not. It is incredibly difficult to know what they are buying into.
The main challenge that I want to address, which has already been touched on, is the fuel costs for residents, particularly those who use LPG. I recently surveyed residents of Devon Oak Park and Bittaford Wood on whether the issue was impacting them, so that I could seek to do something about it. Everyone using LPG who responded had seen an increase in their costs. Most were paying up to a quarter more, and some were paying as much as half again. That equates to a bill increase of more than £100, and some are paying as much as £150 more. My view is that every constituent whose household relies on LPG should receive support equivalent to that going to households using oil. I appreciate that the Minister is in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, rather than the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but I hope he will hear those pleas.
It is not difficult to understand why my constituents are seeking support. As we have heard, these households are off grid not by choice, but by circumstance. LPG prices, unlike mains gas prices, are unregulated and uncapped, and users are exposed to market volatility with no safety net. One constituent told me that they are
“finding it very hard to make ends meet.”
Another told me that
“being pensioners does not give us much for essentials”.
One constituent simply said: “Help, please.” I plead with the Minister to hear that and to commit to make that plea on behalf of park home owners to his colleagues in other Departments.