Caravan site licencing

Use this service to apply for a caravan site licence.

Land can only be used as a caravan site where the owner has a valid caravan site licence.

The definition of a caravan includes mobile homes, park homes and some log cabin type accommodation.

A caravan site licence will have conditions attached to it to protect the health and safety of the people living on the site and any visitors.

Before you start

You don’t need a site licence in the following circumstances;

• temporary use on private property (including building and engineering sites, seasonal workers and travelling showmen sites)
• incidental use within the boundary of a house
• single caravan used by a person for not more than two nights and not stationed on the land for more than 28 days within a 12-month period
• the site is five or more acres and there are three or fewer caravans there for 28 days or less every year
• sites occupied or approved and supervised by exempted organisations
• sites operated and owned by a local council, county or regional council.

Start now

Park homes licensing fee policy

The Mobile Homes Act 2013 provides greater protection to occupiers of residential caravans and mobile homes. The Act amended the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 and introduced licensing.

Local authorities have the ability to charge site owners a fee for applying for a site licence, for amendments or transfers of existing licences, and for annual fees. These powers can be used only for “relevant protected sites”.

Sites which are used for holiday use or are only allowed to have units stationed on them at certain times of the year are exempt from licensing fees. Licences can only be issued to the owners of sites that have obtained valid planning permission.

In order to be able to charge fees, we need to publish them. We may decide that no fee is required to be paid in certain cases.

We decided to make sites with less than five pitches exempt from annual fees (but no other licensing fees) as these are less onerous to inspect, and collecting annual fees would not be cost effective. The Mobile Homes Act 2013 enables us to serve enforcement notices, and to carry out works in default to remedy breaches of site licence conditions.

The fees and charges are set out below.

The Mobile Homes Act 2013 contains changes relating to site rules.  Site owners will be able to replace existing site rules with new ones that should be deposited with us. We must publish an up to date register of these rules and we can charge a fee for their deposit. We may require a fee to register site owners who wish to be “fit and proper persons” for managing relevant protected sites.

Licence fees

Site owners must ensure their park homes sites are licensed unless there is a valid exemption. Failure to licence is an offence.

The annual licence fee reflects the costs associated with monitoring conditions on sites, dealing with licensing matters and complaints, officer time spent on site inspections and administration of the licence.

Costs incurred in relation to enforcement activities such as serving notices cannot be recovered from the licence fee, and so a separate fee is charged for this.

Charges for enforcement notices

Charges for enforcement notices will be made in accordance with Housing Act 2004 notices by using a time and officer cost calculation. This is increased annually in accordance with the Council's fees and charges schedule.

Fees for depositing site rules

Site rules are created by the site owner and residents have to comply with them.  Site rule regulations require existing site rules to be replaced with new site rules which must be deposited with us. It is estimated that it will take approximately one hour for officers to review site rules, and a fee of £38 will be made.

Annual fee review

The fees included in this Policy will be reviewed annually and increased in line with the recommended annual percentages for all fees contained in the Council’s fees and charges schedule.