Doug Davis, 73 and Pam Donovan, 77, now live in a bungalow in Barry, south Wales (Picture: Media Wales)
An elderly couple have been forced to move out of a caravan park which they’ve called home for the last 20 years.
Doug Davis, 73 and Pam Donovan, 77, had been obliviously living illegally at the Porthkerry leisure park in south Wales alongside other caravanners, not realising they were meant to have a ‘permanent home’ elsewhere.
The issue came to light during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, when the Welsh government told the site to close and asked residents to move back to their main residences.
But the government then realised around 40 people had been living on the site for 10 months a year in caravans, with some even paying council tax.
Vale Holiday Parks took over the site this year on the provision former owner Phil Edwards would end the permanent living issue.
Doug and Pam are part of a small group who left in June after coming to an out of court settlement with Mr Edwards costing tens of thousands of pounds.
Recalling the moment they were asked to leave by Mr Edwards in August 2020, Pam said: ‘It was a shock. We couldn’t believe it. Everyone knew we were living there and nothing was said for two decades.’
‘Every year I went into the office, paid my money for the year, got my little slip and that was that,’ Doug said. ‘Everyone knew. And we loved it there.’
The couple faced a lengthy court battle after being forced to leave the caravan park they lived on (Picture: NCJ Media)
Doug and Pam claim they paid £120 a month in council tax each year to the Vale of Glamorgan Council, which showed they were living on the park permanently.
The couple say all their payments to the council showed they were living there for ten months of the year, and were never told what they were doing was wrong.
Doug and Pam now say they realise they shouldn’t have paid council tax on a caravan unless it was their permanent residence, and so they say the council should have known from the documents they were living on the site against site rules.
In the UK it is illegal to live on a holiday park in a caravan permanently without a primary residence elsewhere.
The temporary home should be used for recreation and holiday use only and does not require council tax payment.
The couple miss the happy memories of living at the caravan park (Picture: Media Wales)
Pam said: ‘We live in a small bungalow in Barry, we struggled so much to find one.
‘We’re renting it. It’s only by luck we got it. We tried to get a council owned property but they had none.’
‘We don’t feel we did anything wrong,’ Doug added.
‘If we were told what we were doing was wrong we wouldn’t have carried on doing it. We were oblivious. We wanted to carry on fighting but we signed in the end because we couldn’t see a way out of it.’
Mr Edwards said he had been fair paying the couple £25,000 for the caravan they bought in 2018 for £21,000 and those who refused to leave the holiday park all paid hefty sums while most walked away last year with nothing.
Mr Edwards said: ‘Our rules have always been clear that we are a leisure park and owners could only stay with us on holiday.
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‘We have always asked our owners for a home address.
‘When the Welsh Government justifiably asked us to close fully in March 2020, we became aware that there were approximately 40 owners who could not leave straight away because, since purchasing their caravans, they had decided to sell their homes or rent them out for extra income while maintaining them as a postal address.
‘These owners had not told us about this.
‘We told them that their remedy was to move to a main residence away from the park.
‘We said that, because the situation had been going on for so long, it was unlikely to be enough to just tell us that they had moved and they should produce some evidence that they are now in fact living somewhere else.
‘Whilst one option for them would be to sell their caravan, they were also welcome to remain our customers as long as they were prepared to comply with the park rules by only visiting us for holidays.’
Vale of Glamorgan Council has been contacted for comment by Metro.co.uk.
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The couple and other caravanners faced a lengthy legal battle with the previous owner.