EIGHT families involved in an eviction row with their landlord were
yesterday still refusing to quit their mobile homes on a Stirlingshire
caravan park despite having their electricity and water cut off.
Their act of defiance began on Friday when the residents at the
Woodyett Caravan Park, near Denny, ignored a 28-day eviction order from
the site owner to leave the ground.
Since then repeated attempts by the landowner, Mrs Mary Nelson, to
remove the residents, many of whom are elderly, have failed. It is
understood legal moves may be made later this week.
Electrical supplies to the static caravan homes were cut off on
Thursday night, several hours before the deadline set by the site owner
for the families to leave.
With the residents doggedly refusing to quit their homes, or move them
to another site, water supplies were cut off by Mr Liberty Joe Durrant,
Mrs Nelson's husband on Friday, and the sewage system around the park
dismantled.
However, the moves have done little to force the remaining residents
to give up, according to Mrs Margaret Watkin, chairwoman of the Woodyett
Park Home Owners' Association.
She said: ''If they want me out of my home then they will have to
bulldoze me out. There is no way I am going to leave. Many of us have
stayed here for over 10 years and these are our homes.
''If we had to walk away now many of us would lose substantial sums of
money.''
She believes that much of the blame for their predicament lies with
Falkirk District Council, which, it is argued, failed to force Mrs
Nelson to carry out urgent repairs to the site's electrical system after
it was classed ''dangerous''.
Unable to meet the huge costs involved in the electrical work,
estimated at more than #20,000, the site owner decided to close down
Woodyett and handed back her site operator's licence to the district
council.
Mrs Nelson had initially applied to the local authority to extend the
site to provide an additional 15 static caravans and 44 tourers, but the
proposal was rejected and an appeal to the Secretary of State for
Scotland failed.
A Falkirk District Council spokesman said yesterday that the authority
was seeking legal advice to determine what powers were available to it
in dealing with potential environmental health problems on the site.
He added that the council's housing officers had been involved in
finding new and temporary accommodation for residents of the site, while
others had been offered bed and breakfast accommodation.
However, many of the residents are refusing to leave Woodyett until
the local authority has found them new ground on which to place their
homes. The council spokesman said such a move was unlikely.
Mr George Moore of the Glasgow-based solicitors Hamilton, Burns and
Moore, who act on behalf of Mrs Nelson, confirmed that legal moves would
be made to have the remaining residents taken off the site.
He added that the site had to close down because of the costs involved
in carrying out the electrical repairs. His client regretted the
decision, particularly as she stood to lose a substantial sum of money.
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