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| Tingdene paid £2.15-million for Fitties chalet park |
IT has been a case of spend-spend-spend for Tingdene Holiday Parks Ltd since taking over the management and operation of the Humberston Fitties chalet park six years ago.
Some have said that, in paying North East Lincolnshire Council just £2.15-million for a 125-year lease, Tingdene may have acquired the asset relatively cheaply.
But the company reckons to have splashed out at least another £483,000 in upgrading the water, sewage, and electricity alongside routine maintenance.
Big ticket expenditure has also included groundworks to repel an influx of badgers and repair, in 2019, of a large leak and collapsed drain at the entrance to the site.
To mitigate flood risk, £31,200 was spent on cleaning the drainage dykes in and around the park.
The decision by North East Lincolnshire Council to offload the site was made when the authority was under Labour control.
It took the view that running a chalet park was a non-core activity for the authority and used up precious cash and staff-time resources.
A particular headache for the authority - one inherited by Tingdene - was the need to address no fewer than 151 breaches of the terms of leases, with some occupants disregarding the eight-week closed period during January and February and treating the chalets as their round-the-year residences
According to Tingdene, "the vast majority" of these breaches have now been resolved.
A report seen by the Grimsby News states: "As part of the ongoing investment in the Park, THPL chose to incentivise chalet owners to make a commitment to the Park by offering new long-term 65-year leases at a nil cost to the chalet owner with Tingdene also paying all legal costs.
"These leases provide the individual chalet owners with an asset with long-term security that the chalets are able to remain on their plot of land on the Park.
"This is in contrast to the uncertainty and lack of investment when the Park was operated by the council as only short-term leases were offered, discouraging owners from investing in the maintenance and upgrading of the fabric of their chalets."
The park currently consists of 320 privately owned holiday chalets and many owners have, indeed, chosen to upgrade.
At present, there are 11 unoccupied plots as follows:
* 65
* 262
* 75
* 33
* 80
* 105
* 308A
* 192
* 313A
* 192
* 176
Tingdene would like to see these developed, and a planning application has already been submitted for at least one - 176.
However, securing consent might not be a simple matter.
The Environment Agency may raise concerns about flood risk, particularly given the proximity of the Fitties site to the sea.
There may also be questions about the legal status of the plots and whether further development might be to the detriment of trees (which may need to be felled) and wildlife.
The 320 existing chalet owners pay either business rates or council tax at Band A rates which are currently £1,298.00 per annum, resulting in an annual income to North East Lincolnshire Council of approximately £415,000.
Says Tingdene: "It is considered that the benefits to the wider community demonstrate that the siting of replacement chalets on the 11 currently vacant plots outweighs the flood risk which is already, and can into the future be appropriately mitigated and managed."
Just wondering how much Tingdene are paying you for your PR services? Maybe, for balance, you should have interviewed some owners.
ReplyDeleteAre they for real they have done nothing only charge the owners for this so called work, they haven't spent any money it's the owners who have had to pay for this, think you need to go visit the fitties and talk to the people who love there and having to pay these extortionate maintenance costs every year, all I ever see the do it cut the grass, they making. Millions out of people's it's discussing!!
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