A Buckinghamshire mobile homes boss has been ordered to pay a woman £7,500 after a new road ‘encroached’ on her pitch.
Joe Burns must pay the money to Liz Phillips within 28 days, according to the ruling handed down at a first-tier property tribunal last week. Burns is the director of Silk Mills Leisure, the owner of the Nook Park mobile homes site on Willow Road in the village of Great Horwood.
The businessman has been upgrading facilities at the site and preparing it for new caravans that will be situated there. However, Phillips and some other residents have expressed concern with the way Burns has carried out the improvements. After taking over Nook Park in 2021, Burns’ company removed hedges, paths and gardens from the site as he sought to expand and improve it.
Last week, Judge Shepherd and surveyor Mary Hardman said in their tribunal decision that they had found ‘significant encroachment’ on Phillips’ pitch by the new road. They added: “The old roadway was a point of delineation on the plan. Accordingly, the land up to the old roadway was part of the pitch. This land was removed from the pitch with the construction of the road.” They said that they did not consider it reasonable to order Burns to remove the road or to move it as this would be ‘expensive and cause further disruption to residents’ and instead, had decided to award compensation to Phillips who lives at number 7 at Nook Park. They added that submissions by both sides about compensation were ‘wide of the mark in terms of providing a basis to calculate’ the figure to be paid out.
Reacting to the ruling, Phillips told the Bucks Free Press that she was ‘extremely pleased’ with the amount of compensation to be paid. She said: “The verdict just proves what the man Joe Burns is and what we have been through and are still going through as residents.” Phillips added: “He has given us grief, stress etc. On my own part he took part of my garden just to widen an already adequate road just so he can put more park homes on.”
The ruling follows another tribunal decision in October of last year, which saw fellow Nook Park resident Andy Waller of number 9 awarded £5,100 in compensation after trees and parts of his lawn were ripped up ‘without permission’. Reacting to the latest ruling, Burns told the Free Press that he and his team ‘look forward to rebuilding relationships with the owners of caravan no 7 and caravan no 9’. He added: “This is the end of the two legal decisions that were being awaited on the park, we are extremely pleased with the outcome of both cases and feel the judge did his best in what has been a difficult period of time during the site’s refurbishment process.”
The park homes boss also explained that the refurbishment works at Nook Park were fully completed ahead of the placing of new caravans, which will be made available to rent to the public from September 2024 onwards. Burns said: “Although the project has been a difficult one, the overall outcome is a successful one for the tenants, as they now benefit from onsite security cameras and lighting, as well as upgraded roads and utilities, and can rest assured no major works will be required for at least 50 years plus. “We are very pleased with this project’s conclusion and are now actively seeking new parks to acquire.”
In February of this year, Buckinghamshire Council imposed an Article 4 direction on Nook Park limiting the works that can be carried out without needing planning permission from the council.
In May, a tribunal upheld the council’s decision that Burns was not a ‘fit and proper person’ to manage a mobile home site.
1st July 2024.
