Residents of caravan homes face fight to stay

MEETING COULD DECIDE TO REMOVE 20 PARK HOMES

- By ALISON STEPHENSON

RESIDENTS who face losing their caravan homes on Dartmoor because of a breach of planning regulations by their landlord are pleading for all sides to get together and find a solution.

A crunch meeting will be held by Dartmoor National Park Authority today to decide whether enforcement action will be taken to remove around 20 park homes at Devon Oaks caravan site near Horrabridge which have been in full residential use without the necessary planning consent.

Members of the close-knit community that has formed over the past five years say they are “angry” and “heartbroken” and not willing to leave the site without a fight.

They say they were sold their park homes next to the River Walkham, some at over £200,000, on the basis that they could live in them for 11 months of the year, which would be extended to 12 months, with a 35 year lease.

One resident Lynne Watts said they had bought the homes in good faith and wanted to be allowed to live in them peacefully in what was an “amazing community”.

“We are people who have worked all our lives and we have contributed to society and the wider area by paying council tax, the same as everyone else.,” she said.

“We have come here to live at what is the end of our lives, in varying degrees, and just want a quiet life and a beautiful place to live it. We have been made to feel incredibly vulnerable for something that is not our fault.