Closed Again

Here we are 17 days after the park was opened for the 2008 season and it has closed again. The river has risen after the rain over the weekend and all the river frontage has disappeared from view.The water level is up on the grass and a part of the car park by the gate is under water.However the worst thing is the situation of the sewage pump. Because it is at the lowest point of the site to facilitate flow from each caravan, it is also the first thing to be inundated by increased water levels. Unless it is switched off it will pump continuously trying to get the flood level down. This system is only designed to pump intermittently when the sewage level builds up and switch itself off when the level falls. If it is not switched off the park owner will get a large electricity bill for trying to pump the river Avon up the hill to Binton. Just to make him more unhappy the park owner still has 7 pitches unoccupied. That represents a loss of rent of around £10,000 and of course the lack of commision from selling new caravans (approx 30%) which would represent a further loss of say another £70,000. Who'd be a park owner of a site overlooking the river ? If he was a decent person you could almost feel sorry for him. But he has been so unpleasant to everyone on the site that the reaction is more likely to be "serves him right".The big danger for existing caravan owners is that faced with these big losses he will have to increase his rents and maybe evict some more people to raise his revenues. Or he could go bankrupt and please a lot of people in the village.