Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Park Owners Attitude
It has just come to my notice that the current owner of this Caravan Park revealed his true character shortly after taking over. Apparently when he first showed up on site, soon after buying the park, he met one of the tenants who greeted him in a friendly manner. Nothing strange about that I am sure you would agree. However the response he got was rather unexpected. The park owner retorted that he did not want tenants speaking to him as they should know their place. He did not wish to become friendly with them because he was the owner and they were only temporary tenants !
What sort of unpleasant, arrogant and rude person would you have to be to act like that on a first meeting with a customer ?
Just to illustrate that the other joint owner, Mr Nasty's wife, showed a similar attitude when my daughter met her for the first time. My daughter, who is a mobile hairdresser, had gone on the site to attend to a tenants hair. She innocently asked which caravan was owned by Mrs Nasty, not having seen her on the site previously and wishing to be friendly and make the newcomer welcome. The response was "oh ! They are all mine !" This from a woman who had, with her husband, bought a patch of land that happened to have a number of caravans on that had all been bought by individuals. All these individual caravan owners were obviously now to be considered as "inferior" by Mr & Mrs Nasty in spite of the large sums they had paid to buy their caravans and were doomed to paying rent to this arrogant pair or take the hint and leave. Of course if they decided to leave they faced paying the evil ones 15% of the sale price of their unit or accepting a financial loss by accepting an unfairly low price from the park owners.
Anyone reading this will obviously not want to do business with unethical grasping characters that cannot be trusted. Be warned !
What sort of unpleasant, arrogant and rude person would you have to be to act like that on a first meeting with a customer ?
Just to illustrate that the other joint owner, Mr Nasty's wife, showed a similar attitude when my daughter met her for the first time. My daughter, who is a mobile hairdresser, had gone on the site to attend to a tenants hair. She innocently asked which caravan was owned by Mrs Nasty, not having seen her on the site previously and wishing to be friendly and make the newcomer welcome. The response was "oh ! They are all mine !" This from a woman who had, with her husband, bought a patch of land that happened to have a number of caravans on that had all been bought by individuals. All these individual caravan owners were obviously now to be considered as "inferior" by Mr & Mrs Nasty in spite of the large sums they had paid to buy their caravans and were doomed to paying rent to this arrogant pair or take the hint and leave. Of course if they decided to leave they faced paying the evil ones 15% of the sale price of their unit or accepting a financial loss by accepting an unfairly low price from the park owners.
Anyone reading this will obviously not want to do business with unethical grasping characters that cannot be trusted. Be warned !
Monday, March 3, 2008
Poor Start to the Season
The season for use of caravans started on the 1st March and this year is remarkable for one thing. The site is not fully occupied. You might think that this is a small matter but not when you know the background. I was a caravan owner on the site for 6 years. My van was on pitch no.9 which was the best position for views and also the most elevated part of the site which kept us out of the high water problems experienced by most customers. Those at the rear of the site were most at risk because there was a ditch running around that area which filled up first before inundating the sewage pump system.
In spite of this the site looked so pretty when the sun was shining ,with well kept grass and an abundance of shrubs and flowers, when viewed from the road, and there was a constant stream of potential customers asking for membership. In the 6 years I was involved, and under two park owners there were never any vacancies. If somebody decided to leave their caravan was snapped up very quickly.
So what has made the difference ? There are ,in my opinion, several factors operating which are;
1) The flood. There was a flood at Easter 1998 which wiped out nearly all the caravans. Everyone thought that it was an isolated incident which would not happen again for another 30 years. However July 2007 disproved that idea and every caravan was lost again. Only a few weeks ago the car park was under water again and the current park owner has had to bring a dinghy on site so he can access the park next time it happens.
2) The new owners who took over on 1st August 2006 have introduced a lot of unpopular rules, some of which have seriously detracted from the site's appearance and most of which have served to make the owners themselves very resented. This has made it much less appealing to spend your leisure time there.
3) The cost of insurance which is obviously going to continue to rise due to the floods.
4) The necessity to have flotatation chambers fitted to every caravan stipulated by the insurers. This is ugly and expensive. some owners, who had flotation fitted before the July 2007 floods, found that they worked up to a point but were hindered by gas bottle connections . The gas bottles weigh 47kg each and are not going to float up with the caravan. Most are anchored to the spot by 2 of these. Consequently the caravan is held down on one side and if there is an adjacent balcony it will pierce the thin aluminium skin and it will be beyond repair.
5) There is a longstanding resident on site who has gained the confidence of successive park owners and they have delegated some tasks to her. This has obviously inflated her ego and she has been heard to drop it out in casual conversation with strangers that "she has a caravan site at Binton Bridges". She has been in this "privileged" position for so long that she actually seems to believe that she has authority to tell other residents what to do and she does. She is very jealous of her perceived power and anyone who does not agree with her warped views is immediately targetted as a threat to her. She sets about undermining her rival with whispering campaigns against them with completely unfounded rumours. Because she is so confident and plausible she misleads people by quoting that she is acting on the park owners views and her audience assume she is speaking the truth. One of her favourite tactics is to tell all her "confidants" that if they do not stop talking to the rival then they will be the next to be evicted.
The rival then finds she is isolated and cannot understand why previously friendly neighbours have stopped talking to them. People do not stand up to her because she is so plausible and of course if her threats are taken seriously then there could be a large financial penalty incurred.
At best you are very likely to be the next rival to be attacked. I know as I was targetted mainly, I think, because my wife was very popular on the site and the troublemaker felt overshadowed and in danger of losing her "power". Because she fed the new park owner with various rumours, and the park owner did not know us, he set out to evict us. So because of her unfounded accusations we were put to a lot of worry, (my wife suffered a heart attack in Oct 2006) trouble and expense with solicitors' bills (to the point of issuing an injunction) and eventually lost our caravan and £20,000 insurance money when the site flooded. She is still there and still using the same tactics.
6) A number of people have decided not to renew their membership on the park and have told the park owners that the reason is the way their neighbours were so unfairly evicted. And with the troublemaker mentioned above they do not want to risk the same treatment. They have taken the insurance payment and left breathing a sigh of relief that they have escaped the unpleasant prospect of the same thing happening to them.
The conclusion is that this business seems to be going downhill fast because lack of customers means lack of rent, lack of commission and the bills continue regardless.
In spite of this the site looked so pretty when the sun was shining ,with well kept grass and an abundance of shrubs and flowers, when viewed from the road, and there was a constant stream of potential customers asking for membership. In the 6 years I was involved, and under two park owners there were never any vacancies. If somebody decided to leave their caravan was snapped up very quickly.
So what has made the difference ? There are ,in my opinion, several factors operating which are;
1) The flood. There was a flood at Easter 1998 which wiped out nearly all the caravans. Everyone thought that it was an isolated incident which would not happen again for another 30 years. However July 2007 disproved that idea and every caravan was lost again. Only a few weeks ago the car park was under water again and the current park owner has had to bring a dinghy on site so he can access the park next time it happens.
2) The new owners who took over on 1st August 2006 have introduced a lot of unpopular rules, some of which have seriously detracted from the site's appearance and most of which have served to make the owners themselves very resented. This has made it much less appealing to spend your leisure time there.
3) The cost of insurance which is obviously going to continue to rise due to the floods.
4) The necessity to have flotatation chambers fitted to every caravan stipulated by the insurers. This is ugly and expensive. some owners, who had flotation fitted before the July 2007 floods, found that they worked up to a point but were hindered by gas bottle connections . The gas bottles weigh 47kg each and are not going to float up with the caravan. Most are anchored to the spot by 2 of these. Consequently the caravan is held down on one side and if there is an adjacent balcony it will pierce the thin aluminium skin and it will be beyond repair.
5) There is a longstanding resident on site who has gained the confidence of successive park owners and they have delegated some tasks to her. This has obviously inflated her ego and she has been heard to drop it out in casual conversation with strangers that "she has a caravan site at Binton Bridges". She has been in this "privileged" position for so long that she actually seems to believe that she has authority to tell other residents what to do and she does. She is very jealous of her perceived power and anyone who does not agree with her warped views is immediately targetted as a threat to her. She sets about undermining her rival with whispering campaigns against them with completely unfounded rumours. Because she is so confident and plausible she misleads people by quoting that she is acting on the park owners views and her audience assume she is speaking the truth. One of her favourite tactics is to tell all her "confidants" that if they do not stop talking to the rival then they will be the next to be evicted.
The rival then finds she is isolated and cannot understand why previously friendly neighbours have stopped talking to them. People do not stand up to her because she is so plausible and of course if her threats are taken seriously then there could be a large financial penalty incurred.
At best you are very likely to be the next rival to be attacked. I know as I was targetted mainly, I think, because my wife was very popular on the site and the troublemaker felt overshadowed and in danger of losing her "power". Because she fed the new park owner with various rumours, and the park owner did not know us, he set out to evict us. So because of her unfounded accusations we were put to a lot of worry, (my wife suffered a heart attack in Oct 2006) trouble and expense with solicitors' bills (to the point of issuing an injunction) and eventually lost our caravan and £20,000 insurance money when the site flooded. She is still there and still using the same tactics.
6) A number of people have decided not to renew their membership on the park and have told the park owners that the reason is the way their neighbours were so unfairly evicted. And with the troublemaker mentioned above they do not want to risk the same treatment. They have taken the insurance payment and left breathing a sigh of relief that they have escaped the unpleasant prospect of the same thing happening to them.
The conclusion is that this business seems to be going downhill fast because lack of customers means lack of rent, lack of commission and the bills continue regardless.
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