Tiny Houses: The Future of Caravans?
Caravans and Brits - A True Love Affair
In the U.K, we LOVE caravans. If you haven’t been on a caravan holiday are you even British?? While we do have a fondness of the cabaret at night or the too many beers in front of the barbecue, we’re usually not so found of the metal box itself where you can hear pigeons eating breakfast on the roof at 6am or you feel as if you’ve woke up in Antartica.
Fortunately, caravans are just for holidays, and with Covid reducing the amount of people that can go abroad, we soon realise that their may be an overload of new caravan parks popping up in 2022 ready for the boom of ‘stay at home’ holidays.
With caravan park enquiries going through the roof country-wide, it begs the question, why can't tiny houses ‘parks’ be created? Just like a caravan park but with better quality livinig?
That thought exactly, is what we're going to explore in this article. The rise of Tiny Houses and how they can be used not only for long-term dwellings but also for UK holidays - With the infrastructure in place already for statics, why couldn't it be used for a 'tiny park'.
Caravan Parks: Do the costs outweigh the benefits?
A quick google shows that some brand new, 2018 static caravans can go for as much as £120,000!
An insane price when you think all you get is a thin sheet of metal between you and the forces of nature, plus a fairly standard set up inside. Compare that to Tiny Houses by ourselves, or other companies, you're talking at least 50% of a Static caravan average price. So why the difference?
On the face of it - Tiny Houses are built to much higher standards, as they're more insulative, sturdier (you can jump up and down and not a soul will hear you!), with more mod-cons, more eco-friendly, and from our (semi-biased) point of view, they provide a better living experience compared to statics.
The difference is for a static caravan or park home, is that you have a much larger unit - up to 12m or 36ft in length. It could have 2 or 3 bedrooms and a fairly decent sized bedroom if you’re lucky, but even with this extra space - it’s usually poorly designed to really accomodate everyone’s needs, especially when it comes to storage.
We've had questions from people like youself reading right now, about whether you could place your tiny home on a caravan park - and from the research, there are no laws, by-laws or stipulations saying that you couldn't do so. However, after contacting a fair few, we have discovered that many don't recognise a tiny house as a caravan or park home (to be honest we don't like placing them in that category either, but with no laws surrounding tiny houses it is the only choice). Therefore, the majority will not allow you to place a tiny house on a site.
What's The Solution?
For those wanting the community vibe like a caravan park, instead, you do have the option to work together with others to build a tiny home park. For example, if twenty tiny house dwellers found land, split the costs and worked on planning permission for twenty small dwellings on-site (by either building to park home status or taking the eco stance) you may just be granted the permission to live there.
Another solution could be to purchase land, grant permission for a small dwelling (by designing a slightly larger tiny house) and then place glamping pods on site for annual income.
Other more straightforward solutions are to place your home on someone else's land or in a family members back garden should they have space.
Further note* UK planning laws are changing all the time, and as the tiny house community grows, we do not doubt that tiny houses will have a law of their own in time. We are also working on tiny house community projects, and should you want to get involved, feel free to reach out to us.
If you have any questions about where you can place your Tiny Home, or anything else related to Tiny Living, we welcome any and all questions. Simply contact us below.
