NEW development at a park homes site in South East Cornwall must be removed, says Cornwall Council.

An enforcement notice has been served to Wyldecrest Parks, which own the St Dominic Park site in the Tamar Valley.

The notice states that work undertaken to create new units on the site requires planning permission which has not been sought. It requires the owner to demolish and remove concrete platforms, remove a caravan from the site, demolish and remove new access and roads, and remove all services installed, as well as reinstating the land to its former condition.

But Wyldecrest owner Alfie Best says that the Council has got it wrong and that the work that has gone on is allowed under a certificate of lawful use.

The enforcement notice is the latest update in an unfolding story at the park, where in October 2020 retired residents came out in protest against tree felling, concerned that valued green space in an area known as The Glen was to be lost.

A new static caravan was installed in December and further concrete bases and a road have since been built: it is these items which are the subject of the local authority’s notice.

Resident Tony Turner says that since the new year, three further concrete bases have been put in along with services. Another resident says that a search online for the Park’s address brings up numbers up to 96, indication, they say, that additional houses are planned on top of the existing 80.

“The contractors have left the site in a complete mess, with broken road, a live electricity cable across a footpath, mounds of soil and scattered rubbish,” said Mr Turner.

Owner of the park Alfie Best says that he will appeal the enforcement notice and that he “absolutely will not” be removing the items in question.

He said: “The Council have got this completely wrong. We already have a certificate of lawful use for the whole site.

“We also have a site licence, which gives us permitted development rights, this allows us to lay drains, roads, and bases, adequate to run it as a caravan park.”

Mr Best, whose company owns more than 80 residential and holiday parks around the UK, said that “we deal with a lot of councils in total. Cornwall Council are not a bad council”.

He added that rules for caravan parks were not the same as for housing estates and that “sometimes mistakes get made”.

Mr Best said that the recent work at St Dominic Park had been done in an area where there had previously been a garage block, and that “once the small development which is ongoing was completed then landscaping would be done”.

He has previously told the Cornish Times that he is proud of what Wyldecrest does and that his aim is to improve St Dominic Park for the benefit of residents.

In a statement, the local authority said: “Cornwall Council issued an Enforcement Notice on April 12, 2021, in relation to the unauthorised development of concrete platforms relating to the siting of additional residential caravans at St Dominic Park.

“The notice requires the unauthorised development to be removed within nine months of the notice taking effect on May 17, 2021.

“If an appeal is lodged before May 17, 2021, the matter will be frozen until the Planning Inspectorate issues a decision.”

Mr Turner, who is chair of the national Park Homes Policy Forum, said: “Residents are grateful for the intervention of Cornwall Council.

“It is the latest in a series of similar cross-county events, that emphasises the need for anyone considering downsizing to a residential Park Home to first ensure that there are proper planning consents and to engage solicitors to oversee the transactions.”