Caravan owners fear rent rise will drive them away
TENBY caravan owners claim they might have to quit a holiday park over what they claim is an “extortionate” £2,000 increase in ground rent.
One of the owners is David, from Caerphilly, who doesn’t want to give his surname.
He claimed he wasn’t the only owner who was having to consider selling his “beloved” caravan at Kiln Park, as he said the extra fees made it financially impossible to stay.
But site owner Haven said its running costs had “increased significantly”, meaning it had little choice but to hike up fees.
The caravan park, on the outskirts of Tenby, is a popular place for holidaymakers visiting Pembrokeshire all year round. But with David’s site fees topping £9,000 for the coming 2023 summer season, he said he wouldn’t be able to afford to keep coming with his family.
David said he visited
Tenby every other weekend, often with his four children in tow. All love it there but he said they had started to notice costs creep up in the shops and cafes in the area.
While he accepted that inflation was running at an all-time high, he said that when he bought his caravan two years ago for £23,000, site fees were just £6,000. He believed the recent fees hike was “ridiculous”.
“There’s no reason for it,” he said. “The annual increases are normally about £350, which everyone is happy with. But this is ridiculous. I’m very close to selling it, to be honest.”
David, a mechanic, said his youngest child, aged seven, was already talking about their next visit, but he told him it might not be possible. He added: “I believe it’s another show of big companies taking advantage of the average working person. I’m an owner there and like many now are being forced into selling our beloved caravans.”
Another owner, Richard Morgan, has had a caravan at Kiln Park since 2014. Self-employed and from Newport, he said the half-dozen times he visited did not justify the spiralling costs of having a
Pembrokeshire bolthole. The latest price increases were “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, he said.
“Things haven’t been great down there for a long time now,” he said. “We’re constantly having to put our hands in our pockets and you do think as an owner ‘what do I get back in return?.’ The answer is very little.” Richard said his site fees came to more than £8,500 – and that was before he added on gas and electricity.
He said he’d asked the park directly as to why the price hike had been so steep, to be told it was due to the VAT rate being put back up to 20% for 2022. It had been set at 5% for 2020