Owners who have caravans sited at Kiln Park, Penally Court and Lydstep holiday parks have voiced their anger after being told by Bourne Holidays that no site fees would be refunded during the current UK lockdown.

Correspondence sent out to a number of owners last week from the operations director at Bourne Leisure Limited’s (who own Haven Holiday Parks) explained that the company had made the ‘difficult decision’ not to credit any site fees for the Christmas and New Year period.

“2020 was an unprecedented and extremely challenging year for Haven because we provided 2020 site fees Covid-19 credits to our 25,000 owners for a significant number of weeks during the peak summer season, and for the off-peak periods where we were closed due to Government restrictions, we provided a reduced amount of Site Fees Covid-19 credit,” said Bourne’s operations director Colin Archibald.

“The refunds Haven provided to owners was over and above any other UK holiday park, and we made the decision to do that because we value you, our owners.

“In this winter period, your park was due to be open until January 9 2021, but unfortunately due to the nationwide lockdown imposed by the Government, we were unable to open.

“The months of December and January are typically the quietest times on park with very few owners visiting the parks and there are limited or no facilities available. Therefore, we have made the difficult decision not to credit any site fees for the months of December 2020 or January 2021.

“We hope you can appreciate this has been a difficult decision and please be assured that we care about you and understand the financial uncertainty surrounding us all, personally and professionally,” he added.

Disgruntled owners have contacted the Observer in light of the correspondence, saying that it has left a sour taste in what has been a difficult few months, and that flooding on the Kiln Park site over December, coupled with the lockdown being brought forward before Christmas, shouldn’t have been a reason to leave them out of pocket.

“We are absolutely furious that they aren’t refunding site fees as they did from March to July during the first lockdown and also over the fire break,” one owner told the Observer.

“The refund is worth over £250 per-owner from the period the Tier 4 Restrictions started mid December until January 9 when the park would have closed anyway.

“To say the park would have been quiet anyway is nonsense on two counts. Firstly we paid ground rent for that period so regardless of how quiet it is, is irrelevant.

“Secondly after all the lost usage this year almost every owner was planning to spend most of Christmas and New Year at their site, so they would have been busier than ever during that period.”

Another owner said that they had everything set up to spend Christmas in their caravan and then saw all the flooding on the Kiln Park ‘owners site’ on Facebook.

“No one from the park called us about this and the fact that the electric had been turned off, and we were then told the park had closed the weekend before Christmas because of the flooding,” they commented.

“This was the first time in 12 years that we have not spent Christmas in the caravan - but it is not our fault they shut the park due to flooding and then when lockdown restrictions came in.

“It is unfair to say it is a quieter time on the park as these are the times that us owners get to spend time with our other owner friends.

“This is the reason we chose this park, because it was open during the winter where some other parks close down in November.

“They are happy to take our money and not use this on flood defences. If they close the park and we cannot use our vans then we should surely be entitled to some compensation,” they added.

A spokesperson for Haven Holidays said that due to the Coronavirus pandemic it was an ‘unprecedented and extremely challenging year’ for the whole of the tourism and hospitality industry.

“At Haven we looked at the fairest way we could compensate our owners and as a result we provided 2020 Site Fees Covid-19 credits to all our owners for a significant number of weeks during the peak summer season,” they said.

“During the Welsh firebreak in autumn 2020, we provided further site fee credits until owners were able to return to park at the end of the firebreak on November 9.

“Owners were then free to remain on park until we had an unprecedented level and degree of flooding which caused us to close the park on December 18, a few days ahead of the national lockdown, where due to Government legislation we had to close our park on December 23 and remain closed until the end of the owners season on January 9.

“With these extreme circumstances we would not provide a site fee credit where closure is due to situations out of our control.

“The months of December and January are typically the quietest times on park with very few owners visiting the parks and there are limited, or in the case of Kiln Park, Lydstep Beach and Penally Court, no facilities available. Therefore, we have made the difficult decision not to credit any site fees for the month of December 2020 or for the early period of January 2021.

“Whilst we appreciate that some owners may feel they should have been compensated over this period, we believe that during 2020 we provided compensation to our owners that was above and beyond what was required and the vast majority of our owners feel that we have been generous in our response, given the financial uncertainties at this time,” added the spokesperson.