Troubled Cookham park home site may lose its recreation area for good

Residents of the troubled Strande Park mobile park home site in Cookham look set to lose access to their recreation area in a RBWM bid to sort out an administrative mess.

The council has been trying to solve a troublesome situation at Strande Park for more than a year.

Last year, residents raised repeated concerns about unwanted and unexpected clearance works – namely, the removal of trees, shrubs and garages – which they said was done without their consent.

The work was undertaken under the instruction of the owner of the mobile home park, Fred Doe of Sines Holdings Limited (formerly known as Maurice Sines).

He has denied that works took place without the consent or understanding of Strande Park residents and claimed that works were necessary to deal with ongoing fire hazards and to keep the park in line with legal safety standards.

RBWM has been attempting to look into and enforce any valid complaints.

But there is a complication – any violations of the site licence are a violation by the site licence holder, who is not actually the same person as the site owner.

Sines Holdings Ltd took ownership of Strande Park from Holly Lodge (Kingswood) Ltd following a sale in April 2023.

But it does not actually own the site licence. Holly Lodge still has it.

RBWM is the body that grants the site licence to a company, and did so for the former owners, Holly Lodge (Kingswood) Ltd.

This company sold the land to Sines Holdings Ltd without consulting RBWM – and the site licence was never transferred.

RBWM cannot enforce site licence conditions, if the licence holder does not actually own the site, as it is the landowner that is responsible for public liability insurance, it says.

Therefore, the technically responsible Holly Lodge ‘would be unable to take steps to comply with the site licence conditions and/or undertake any works,’ RBWM explained.

The council was not contacted in advance of the sale, and it has ‘no powers’ to stop anyone buying or selling private land.

Moreover, it says, Holly Lodge has not engaged with it to resolve the situation. Holly Lodge was contacted for comment.

To tackle the problem, RBWM has proposed to make a new site licence that would supersede the old one, issued to a new licence holder – the new owner, Sines Holdings.

Earlier this month, RBWM sent a letter to residents asking them to take part in a consultation on the new site licence, with new conditions. It runs until June 9.

But residents have noticed that access to the site’s recreation ground has been removed as a condition from the site licence.

This land, east of Strande Park, was sold to Shanly Homes – and residents no longer have access to this area.

They believe that this new site licence is an attempt to paste over a separate problem, rather than solve it.

The thorny issue of the recreation ground dates back to the Borough Local Plan examination hearings in 2020, when the allocation of land for housing on this parcel was being considered.

The BLP inspector was told ‘there is no authority for residents, or the public at large, to use this land for recreational purposes.’

Paul Webb, a concerned neighbour in the nearby Bass Mead, decried this as a ‘false statement.’

“The open field was designated within the licence given for the site by RBWM as recreational space for the residents,” he said.

“[Strande Park residents] are now being asked to agree to a new park licence that removes the car parking and recreation, with RBWM saying the current licence is unenforceable. The result is an impact on the residents’ quality of life and value of their properties,” said Paul.

Although much of the current complications fell under the former council administration, he said the new one ‘could have stated that this was made falsely and taken legal steps to correct this.’

Maidonian Andrew Hill has also been monitoring the situation for some time – and agrees.

What was said to the BLP hearings ‘should have been known to be false’, since RBWM issued the site licence, he said.

“Residents (and I) have been screaming about this specific document at RBWM for several years to no avail,” he said.

“They have asked in this consultation to remove the ‘authority’ to use the land for recreation and car parking that they told the BLP inspector did not even exist.”

Thus, RBWM has by its actions, he said, ‘belatedly and implicitly’ accepted that it misled the inspector.

A council spokesperson said: “The land to the east of the mobile homes site, which we’re aware was previously available to Strande Park residents as car parking and recreational space, is now in separate private ownership and the council cannot reinstate or require people’s access to it through the licensing process.

“This would be a private matter between the residents and the site owner in relation to their individual tenancy or lease agreements.”