Decision details

(1)        That, following consultation with park home site owners, residents and statutory consultees, and having regard to the previous decision of the Cabinet (C-069-2010/11 refers), the revised ‘Standard Park Home Site Licence Conditions for Permanent Residential Sites in the Epping Forest District’ – as attached at Appendix 2 of the report - be adopted, including the following clarifications and variations from the Model Standards 2008 for Caravan Sites in England:

(a)        That, with regard to closed porches:

            (i)         Mains-powered, interlinked smoke detection with integral battery back up   should be required in all homes that have a closed porch, within 6 months of the       date of the site licence, but where home owners prefer battery powered          detection, that they be allowed to install battery powered systems provided that     they were interlinked, with one alarm being placed in the porch and one in the             home, within no more than 6 months; and

            (ii)  That funding for the home owner’s preferred option be offered, whilst    available, through C.A.R.E’s Handyperson Service to eligible home owners;

(b)        That both Porches and Decking be considered as ‘structures’ for the purposes of Condition 2(iv)(c) of the ‘Standard Park Home Site Licence Conditions for Residential Sites in Epping Forest District’.  Accordingly, any such new structures that extend more than 1 metre into the separation space shall be of non-combustible construction and there must be a 4.5m clear distance between any such structure and any adjacent park home.  However, any porches and decking that contravene this Condition shall be allowed to remain until the park home was eventually replaced; and

(c)        That the following definitions be adopted for the purposes of the Conditions: 

            (i)         With regard to fences, the same guidelines that were applied under            Planning legislation, in terms of adornments and calculation methodology, to          assess whether the height of fences met the requirements of the Site Licence        Conditions; and

(ii)        With regard to hedges, that a hedge was ‘a number of woody plants, whether capable of growing into trees or not, which are so planted as to be intended to be in line and which, when mature, to be so integrated together as to form a screen or a barrier’;

(2)        That the Director of Housing be authorised to amend the licensing conditions to take account of any alterations to the licensing conditions agreed by the Cabinet on the recommendation of the Housing Scrutiny Panel and any other changes made by the Cabinet itself; and

(3)   That, if local authorities were able to charge for park home licensing functions in the future, the Council reserved the right to charge for such functions in line with the relevant statutory legislation in force.