Very few touring caravan sites are open all year. Some have seasonal pitches but cannot be used all year round. Others with non seasonal pitches, their license with the local council requires you to move off after 28 days. It is a big ask what you are looking for.Also as stated you will need a postal address for your vehicle tax and insurance,also driving license and banking etc.
It happens, but any touring site that allows this would be in breach of their licence. As has been said, you are only allowed to stay on one site legally for up to 28 days. Nothing to stop you moving from site to site though, as it's perfectly legal to live in a caravan. The problem would be finding sites that are open at this time of year, as many close for the winter. Also, I'm not sure how many budget-priced sites there are down that way as it is a very popular (expensive) part of the country. It could easily work our dearer than renting a flat.
There are also the other problems that have been mentioned, such as a permanent address for insurances etc. You obviously would not be allowed to use the site address. You can have mail delivered to a post office though as that is something boat dwellers often do. My wife used to work in a post office and served many of them.
I know a few couples who live on site all year round. They are on remote pub sites. I'm guessing they are on there illegally but the pub owner allows it I'm guess to earn a bit of cash over the year in these hard times. Only a thought but it maybe worth trying some remote pubs in your area.
This is becoming a regular question of late, may be worth using the search facility (at head of page) to see previous conversation on the subject.
It's certainly doable, as people do it, albeit maybe less than legitimately, but not as straightforward as may first appear.
Basically 'Touring' caravan sites (that's the majority) are NOT allowed under the terms of their operating licence (issued by local councils) to facilitate occupation for longer than 28 days in any one period - you could leave for one day and return for another 28 days ad-infinitum, as an 'abuse' of the rules, which you may get away with, but the authorities may not be impressed and the site may be at risk of losing their licence! It's done PRECISLY to stop residential occupation on those sorts of sites!
Mobile home sites, residential or holiday, generally will NOT accept touring vans on site! That is likely part of their licencing restrictions.
Pitching a tourer on 'plots of land' not normally used as a licenced camp site, fall under the domain of a host of authorities for various reasons. It's permitted in the short term under the guise of a 'pop up' one off camping event of limited duration of a few days.
I've only looked into it with a pal from the point of view of him using his fields to accommodate a crowd of people camping for special events, and he was considering opening up as a formal campsite as well. What was clear was you cannot just set up for residential occupation, and a campsite with restricted occupation required jumping though quite a few hoops!
Like many things in life, you can often get away with doing things you shouldn't, if you don't draw too much attention to yourself (location! - being too obvious), and the authorities have no cause to do routine checks where anomalies will come to light!
A PERMANENT residential contact address is almost certainly required these days for so many reasons, but that seems to be possible with the cooperation of someone prepared to let you use their address.
We lived on the same site for 2 1/2 years in our touring caravan and used my father's address for correspondence. We had to move off from end of Nov until end of Feb. No major issues. The chances of the council checking to see if you are residential are probably zero!
Quote: Originally posted by iank01 on 10/12/2024
We lived on the same site for 2 1/2 years in our touring caravan and used my father's address for correspondence. We had to move off from end of Nov until end of Feb. No major issues. The chances of the council checking to see if you are residential are probably zero!
Probably true about the council, but I think the most likely thing would be someone reporting you if you were badly behaved. Seasonal campers would be the ones to notice. Keep the area around the caravan tidy and don't hold wild noisy parties until the early hours and nobody would say anything.
Quote: Originally posted by iank01 on 10/12/2024
We lived on the same site for 2 1/2 years in our touring caravan and used my father's address for correspondence. We had to move off from end of Nov until end of Feb. No major issues. The chances of the council checking to see if you are residential are probably zero!
Probably true about the council, but I think the most likely thing would be someone reporting you if you were badly behaved. Seasonal campers would be the ones to notice. Keep the area around the caravan tidy and don't hold wild noisy parties until the early hours and nobody would say anything.
I've been on sites where there have been disgruntled 'mumblings' amongst the touring campers about people quite obviously 'living' on the site, bearing in mind 'tourers' are limited to 21 day or 28 day stays, which is a limitation to some peoples ideal plans! I've used a rally field which was supposed to be exclusively for our group, but we found a permanent resident encamped there, and what annoyed us most, using one of a limited number of EHU posts which were meant to be part of our package and we were paying for!
Council may be a limited risk, but I've stayed on a CCC CS site as a rally group, they had been 'flexible' about our numbers and units on previous stays but the last time they had to stick to the rules as had been visited by the club on a routine inspection and obviously had a shot fired across their bows about something other than our group, but were now obeying the rules for their own business wellbeing! Sites do come under some routine scrutiny occasionally.
Breaking the rules is not entirely without risk, you may find you are displaced at short notice if a complaint raised. That rather implies that you need to keep your van and set up fit and ready to relocate within maybe a day or so, that becomes more challenging the longer you've been pitched, as things like tyres may no longer be roadworthy, brakes seized etc., and we all acquire more 'stuff' and sprawl even with extended holiday stays! Even being just a holiday maker, and pretty tidy and organised, I find the day before departure largely occupied by the 'pack up' ready to tow the next day, clearing up a residential set up doesn't bear thinking about unless you live a VERY simple minimalistic lifestyle!
Even if you escape any 'official' interventions, the 'site' may become uncomfortable at the risk if 'mumblings' reach their ears, and they feel moving you on is in their best interests. You have to bear in mind, you will not be putting an awful lot of money their way, they risk losing an awful lot more if sanctioned in a number of ways!
Not saying don't do it, just need to keep in mind that there are risks and displacement at short notice may be the result. You won't really have any 'rights' to fight your case! Probably best to keep your set up looking anything but a residential arrangement, and not draw undue attention to yourself.
As I said earlier, I know several pubs and farms that have long term tourer staying on there premises. Not all of them are official touring sites. There's a nice farm fairly close to me that has four touring caravans staying permanently. They cause no problems. They have electric and chemical waste. Water is the same as most cl sites from a tap. I'm sure the farmer just does it for a tiny boost to his income. I also know of a couple of local pubs that do the same. As long the vanners don't cause any problems it doesn't bother me.
I've been on sites where there have been disgruntled 'mumblings' amongst the touring campers about people quite obviously 'living' on the site, bearing in mind 'tourers' are limited to 21 day or 28 day stays, which is a limitation to some peoples ideal plans! I've used a rally field which was supposed to be exclusively for our group, but we found a permanent resident encamped there, and what annoyed us most, using one of a limited number of EHU posts which were meant to be part of our package and we were paying for!
Council may be a limited risk, but I've stayed on a CCC CS site as a rally group, they had been 'flexible' about our numbers and units on previous stays but the last time they had to stick to the rules as had been visited by the club on a routine inspection and obviously had a shot fired across their bows about something other than our group, but were now obeying the rules for their own business wellbeing! Sites do come under some routine scrutiny occasionally.
Breaking the rules is not entirely without risk, you may find you are displaced at short notice if a complaint raised. That rather implies that you need to keep your van and set up fit and ready to relocate within maybe a day or so, that becomes more challenging the longer you've been pitched, as things like tyres may no longer be roadworthy, brakes seized etc., and we all acquire more 'stuff' and sprawl even with extended holiday stays! Even being just a holiday maker, and pretty tidy and organised, I find the day before departure largely occupied by the 'pack up' ready to tow the next day, clearing up a residential set up doesn't bear thinking about unless you live a VERY simple minimalistic lifestyle!
Even if you escape any 'official' interventions, the 'site' may become uncomfortable at the risk if 'mumblings' reach their ears, and they feel moving you on is in their best interests. You have to bear in mind, you will not be putting an awful lot of money their way, they risk losing an awful lot more if sanctioned in a number of ways!
Not saying don't do it, just need to keep in mind that there are risks and displacement at short notice may be the result. You won't really have any 'rights' to fight your case! Probably best to keep your set up looking anything but a residential arrangement, and not draw undue attention to yourself.
Never had that issue and why would the owner care as they are getting a more or less permanent income each month enabling the site to keep costs down.
It is worth bearing in mind that recently caravan parks have become big business, with a lot of investment groups (including American, Canadian and Australian) actively and aggressively looking for sites to purchase, mainly with a view of turning them into static holiday sites. They are only interested in sites with the potential to either expand or redevelop, and part of that will be finding reasons to eject existing occupiers in order to put expensive new vans on.
The investment interest has lessened in the current economic climate, but it has not gone away - so the owner of that small site may get an offer from one of the big boys that is simply too good to refuse.
The majority of complaints, or sad news articles about people getting kicked off from sites turn out to be sites that have changed owners and/or management.
Worth keeping it in mind that while it may never happen to you, it is something you should have a contigency plan for.
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Topic: Permanent caravan sites?
via mobile 09/12/2024 at 1:36pm
