Can I Bring My Own Caravan Onto a Holiday Park?

Yes, in most cases you legally can — and you do not need planning permission to do it. The permission already exists. It belongs to the park, not to you. Under section 3(3) of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, a council can only issue a site licence to someone who already holds planning permission for use of that land as a caravan site. So by the time a park is trading, the land is consented for stationing caravans, and the pitch you are looking at is covered by it. As an individual owner you apply for nothing, notify nobody, and sign no planning forms.

The real barrier is commercial, not legal. Most parks will refuse — not because the law stops them, but because selling you a caravan is how they make their money. A park that sells you a unit at £14,000 that cost it £8,000 has made its margin, and if you sell on through the park later it usually takes 10 to 30 per cent of the price. A caravan you brought on yourself earns the park pitch fees and nothing else. That is the whole of the objection, and it is worth understanding clearly, because it tells you which parks to ask.

Why no planning permission is needed

Stationing a caravan on a licensed holiday park is not a change of use. The use is already caravan site. This is the single most misunderstood point in static caravan ownership, and it is why the answer is so different from putting a caravan on a field you own — where you almost certainly do need permission, and where you should ring your local council's planning duty desk before you spend anything.

There is one caveat. A park's planning permission normally comes with conditions, most commonly a cap on the number of caravans, sometimes a holiday-only occupancy condition and a closed season. The site licence adds its own conditions on top. If a park is already at its permitted number, it cannot take your unit even if it wants to. That is a genuine refusal, not a sales tactic, and a park will usually tell you so plainly.

The physical limits that decide it

Even a willing park needs somewhere to put you. Most English holiday park licences are based on the Model Standards 1989 for Holiday Caravan Sites, which set a minimum of 5 metres between units and 3.5 metres at the corners, rising to 6 metres where a unit has combustible cladding, a gross density of no more than 60 caravans per hectare, internal roads at least 3.7 metres wide, and no caravan standing more than 50 metres from a road. Each caravan should stand on a hardstanding covering the whole footprint.

That matters practically. A gap on a park is not automatically a pitch. If your unit is wider or longer than the one that left, the spacing may not work. Give the park the exact dimensions before anything else.

What a park that allows bring-ons will ask for

Expect most or all of the following, and expect it in writing:

• Age. Parks set their own limit, commonly around 10 to 15 years at the point of siting. The so-called 15-year rule is not law. It is a park rule, and it varies.
• Specification. Double glazing and central heating are increasingly a condition of entry, not a luxury. A single-glazed unit with no heating is the hardest thing to place anywhere.
• Build standard. Holiday caravans are built to EN 1647; residential park homes to BS 3632. Know which yours is, because it affects what the park can lawfully let you do with it.
• Gas. LPG work must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer competent in LPG and in leisure accommodation vehicles, under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. Parks will normally want a current certificate before they connect you, and evidence of an annual check every year after.
• Electrics. An inspection and test by a competent person. The Model Standards require periodic inspection of site electrical installations at intervals not exceeding three years.
• Insurance. To the park's minimum cover, usually with the park noted as an interested party.
• Their own siting or connection charge. This is where a park that says yes in principle can still make the deal uneconomic. Ask for the figure in pounds, in writing, before you buy the caravan.

What it actually costs

Haulage is the biggest single item. Expect from around £950 for a move under 30 miles, up to about £4,500 for 150 miles or more, working out at roughly £2.50 to £3.00 a mile. De-siting at one end and re-siting at the other adds £300 to £1,200. If access is tight and the unit has to be lifted, a crane adds £400 to £1,200. Then the park's own charge on top.

Against that, the saving can be substantial. A 2009 two-bed static with no central heating or double glazing is worth roughly £3,000 to £4,000 to the trade, and £6,000 to £13,000 retail on a park. Buying off site and bringing it on is how you capture that gap. Whether it is worth doing depends entirely on the transport distance and the park's siting fee, so get both numbers before you commit to either.

The running costs are the same whichever way the caravan arrives. Site fees currently run about £1,000 to £2,000 on small parks with few facilities, £2,000 to £3,500 with a clubhouse or pool, and £3,500 to £7,500 or more on premium parks. Insurance is around £150 to £200 a year for a starter-size unit and nearer £600 for a lodge. Rates are typically £200 to £400, and gas and electricity around £500 across a season.

How to ask, and where

Ask before you buy, never after. A caravan bought on the assumption that a park will take it is the most expensive mistake in this market, because you then own something sitting on someone else's land with a clock running.

Put six questions to the park in an email, so you have the answers on paper: do you accept privately purchased units; what is your maximum age at siting; what specification do you require; what is your siting and connection charge; do you have a pitch that will take a unit of these dimensions; and what commission, if any, do you take if I later sell on the park.

Realistically, the large operators almost never allow bring-ons. Your chances are far better with smaller independent parks, fishing and lake parks, and seasonal sites, where pitch income matters more than unit sales. If a park says no, it does not have to give a reason and there is no appeal. Bear in mind too that most pitch licence agreements run for twelve months at a time, so a park that resents the arrangement can decline to renew. You want a park that is genuinely comfortable with it, not one that has been talked into it.

Where a park does say yes, the next problem is finding the right unit at trade money rather than retail. That is the side of the market Offsite Caravan works in — static caravans currently available off site, sold off site, where the price reflects what the caravan is worth rather than what a park showroom needs to make on it.

This is general information, not planning or legal advice. Park rules and licence conditions vary site by site, and for anything involving land you own rather than a licensed park, speak to your council's planning duty desk before spending money.