The owners of a Devon holiday park have won an appeal through the application of the government’s Good Practice Guide on Planning for Tourism.
Stephen and Jo Cliff were refused permission to expand their holiday park by West Devon Borough Council on the grounds that the proposal was not supported by council policy.
At appeal the inspector considered that the Devon Structure Plan, which was adopted in 2004, should not be allowed to prevail over the more recent policies in the West Devon Local Plan which allowed the expansion of parks.
The Local Plan policy referred to a survey being undertaken by the Council to establish demand for caravans, occupancy levels and the quality of the existing stock.
The inspector noted that no such survey had been produced more than a year after the adoption of the policy and it appeared to have been abandoned.
Without the survey the policy appeared to be at variance with PPG21 which recommended that planning authorities should investigate whether there are adequate facilities for the static holiday caravanner to have a reasonable choice of sites.
The inspector accepted that Mr and Mrs Cliff had provided evidence of need and that the proposal met the sustainability principles of PPS1, PPS7 and PPG13 and imposed a condition in accordance with the government’s 2006 Good Practice Guide.
References: EGi News 24/11/06
