Brittas Bay holiday units without planning permission can stand

A judge has allowed “extraordinarily foolish” holidaymakers who replaced their mobile homes with “modular houses” without planning permission to keep their dwellings.

Circuit Court president Mr Justice Raymond Groarke said he did not accept the works carried out consisted of efforts to repair, maintain or improve the mobile homes at Staunton's Caravan Park, Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow.

He said he believed Raymond and Marion Conway, who rented plot 20 at the caravan park, and Frank Fitzpatrick, who rented plot 61, would not have spent large sums of money if they had suspected that there was a risk of planning enforcement.

The judge told the Circuit Civil Court he was satisfied the Conways and Mr Fitzpatrick had acted without malice and had genuinely believed that they were entitled to replace their mobile homes. The decisions not to inquire properly about planning permission had been a mistake.

Wicklow County Council had issued proceedings against the owners and against caravan park owner Oliver Staunton after an inspection revealed 27 of the 171 units in the park, including the ones owned by the Conway and Fitzpatrick, were not traditional mobile homes, but modular houses.

Barrister Paul Murray, for the local authority, said the county council claimed the dwellings were double the size of a traditional mobile home, which has an area of about 50 sq m.

It also claimed the new structures, which have no wheels and are transported on a flatbed truck rather than being towed, were made of wood or wood composite instead of the steel or aluminium traditionally used for mobile homes.

Barrister Michael O’Donnell, who appeared for the Conways and Fitzpatrick, said his clients had been entitled to carry out works to maintain and improve the mobile homes and that they were exempted development.

The court heard the character of the new structures was similar to the previous ones.

Barrister Niall Handy said the lands owned by his client, Mr Staunton, had been continuously used as a caravan park since the mid-1940s. The court heard that Staunton's Caravan Park, near the Ballinacarrig Mobile Home Resort, had operated successfully for many decades.

Judge Groarke said he was not satisfied that the two sites came within the Buckroney-Brittas Dunes and Fen special area of conservation, or that they had immediate or apparent negative consequence for the environment.

The judge said in a reserved judgement that Mr Staunton had been at the “very least careless and more likely reckless” to not ask his tenants to seek legal advice when they had spoken to him before putting up the dwellings.

“However, the tenants were not simply entitled to rely on Mr Staunton’s blessing and proceed with the development,” the judge said.

Judge Groarke said he was satisfied the works carried out had been unauthorised as they had no planning permission. He said that any person who seeks to put anything other than a traditional mobile home on a site in the caravan park would be in breach of the court order.

He made no mandatory order against the Conways and Mr Fitzpatrick and awarded the local authority its legal costs against Mr Staunton.