NOT only are they family parks, but they are also family owned and we went to meet Katy Buswell and her brother Roger in the lovely village of Denton, where the group’s head office is located.

Over a mug of tea, or two, in Katy’s office overlooking farmland, she told us the history of the parks, which originated as farms – indeed, the family still farm 1,100 acres of arable land in Oxfordshire. Roger takes responsibility for the farms on a day-to-day basis, and Katy deals with the parks, but both are actively involved.

Roger and Katy’s dad, John, who is now 98 (his wife is 92) bought a number of farms in the 1950s and early 1960s and developed the residential parks at the request of the local authority due to the development of the motor industry in nearby Cowley. (Oh wouldn’t we like to hear that request and have that co-operation nowadays!)

The Morris Motor Company, BMC (British Motor Corporation), British Leyland and Austin Rover may have gone now, but the area’s links with the motor trade remain. The car factory is now owned by BMW, and as the production centre for the Mini it is the largest industrial employer in Oxfordshire. The European headquarters of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles is nearby, too.

Among her other jobs before joining the family business, Katy worked as cook on privately hired barges on the French canals. She took a career break and went back to university in 1994 and read Planning and left with a First.

Her dissertation was on Park Homes as Affordable Housing – oh yes, a lot of local authorities should be considering that nowadays!

As a member of BH&HPA, Katy is the regional representative for Thames and Chiltern area and she was formerly on the parish council.

Happy mix

There is a combination of single and twin units of all ages on all the parks and Katy and Roger are happy with the mix but want to continue to provide a rising standard of accommodation and improve the parks’ services to continue to build up the business for the third generation, Roger’s children. His eldest daughter is an accountant and will join the firm next year in a part time role; another daughter is contemplating joining the team. His son already owns and runs his own business in Oxford.

Katy thinks that there is a demand for smaller homes and suggested that students are tired of student life in flats once they graduate, and locally the nearby huge NHS trust offers fixed term contracts to staff. These are typical of opportunities that arise around the UK where park homes could be rented out and Buswell Parks may therefore consider letting park homes in the future.

Consideration would be given to acquiring other parks, within a certain radius and at the right price. “We’d consider extending our parks but are severely constrained by being in the Oxford Green Belt and by general planning attitudes towards park homes,” Katy told me, and I believe I heard an element of frustration in her words.

Katy and Roger believe that transparency is a key component in dealing with prospective purchasers and with owners when questions arise, and she takes her time to explain to new owners to ensure understanding of the contract. “Meeting with prospective purchasers at an early stage is important. The park homes are their homes on our land and owners have a lot vested in it financially and emotionally.”

Unusually, Roger believes, electric meters are read every month, so residents get accurate and regular bills. This was initiated at the residents’ request. “It’s time consuming, but we tie it in with health and safety checks and quality checks on each park,” said Roger. Rent offices on each park are open each week and ground rent is payable by cash or cheque weekly or monthly. Katy and Roger visit the parks regularly and know each resident.

Community spirit

“There’s a great community spirit on the parks. Wick Farm has a Neighbourhood Watch scheme and holds an annual BBQ with a raffle each summer. It’s a great fun day as they put up a marquee and all residents are welcome. I’m sorry I missed it this year as I was on holiday,” said Katy.

There are essential local services like doctors’ surgeries, playgrounds, dentists, post office, schools and shops near to all the parks.

Transport links are good, too, with buses to London and to Oxford city centre, trains to London and the west, transport links to Gatwick airport and Heathrow and a new train line due to open in 2011 from Marylebone to Oxford.

Buswell Parks is a slowly evolving park group, and is not an aggressive developer, nor is there an aggressive approach to owners. Katy told me that she and her brother empathise with the residents. She added, “I believe that parks could have a great role to play in the provision of affordable or lower cost housing provided through the market mechanism and without subsidy.  Parks are not dissimilar to shared ownership schemes in essence. In this case the park owner owns the land and the home owner owns the home.  Although many parks are restricted to the retired or semi-retired, we believe that park homes provide a useful alternative form of housing for younger people, too.”

So Oxford might be the City of Dreaming Spires, but it is where a dream of living affordably might become a reality.

WHAT DO YOU THINK, KEVIN AND SHAREN?

Kevin and Sharen Claridge moved into their first park home at Wick Farm in 1986 and are now in a 1990 Omar Breckland on the same pitch. Not that it looks like the original four-bedroom design, as Kevin, who works at the BMW factory, has fitted a new kitchen, created a new bathroom and it now has three bedrooms.

It’s also home to Matthew, their 14 year old son, and it would have been nice to chat with him, but he was too busy with his friends; something to do with organising a “sleepover” (or more likely for lads of that age “a lack of sleep over”).

Sharen, who is a nursery nurse, works locally and is doing a degree in childcare.

Kevin and Sharen love having children on the park and also have a traditional style bricks and mortar holiday house
in France.

WHAT DO YOU THINK, HEATHER?

We met Heather Goodwin and her grandchildren, four-month-old Mason and 11-year-old Tia, at St Nicholas Park. Heather had been up since 5am with a griszzling grandson who’s teething.

Heather previously lived not too far away and her Omar park home is her delight. “It’s the bungalow I’ve always wanted, instead of a house with three storeys.
“I love the park, too, as it’s quiet and has great views.”

Her granddaughter likes her Nan’s park home, not least because she has her own bedroom when she stays there. And Mrs Goodwin has a plot with a very nice garden landscaped by her son and his friends.

There are masses of beautiful buddleia shrubs, which attract butterflies. The park as a whole has been awarded a Bronze David Bellamy Conservation Award.

PARK FACTS

Wick Farm
• Started 1960
• 52 plots
• Ground rent £1,365 to £1,568pa
Although on the edge of a housing estate, it is surrounded by farmland and it has three Grade II listed buildings, including a well house that was probably built as a folly. It has won a Gold David Bellamy Conservation Award on five consecutive occasions.

Bayswater Mill
• Purchased in 1983 from neighbours
• 29 plots
• Ground rent £1,310 to £1,513pa
There’s a small block of garages on the park (weekly rent is £6.10 per week) as well as some communal parking areas. There is just a single road through the middle of the park with park homes on each side; number 31, a new park home has a beautiful garden with flowers and vegetables and a greenhouse for the green fingered occupants. No wonder some of the residents have won Oxford in Bloom competitions. A little brook runs through the park, which has also won Gold David Bellamy Conservation awards. The oldest resident is aged 94 and lives in a 52-year-old Lyndhurst Lindholme park home.

Bayswater Farm
• Started in the early 1960s
• 15 plots
• Ground £1,365 to £1,568pa
Although this park is on the edge of a housing estate, there is a public footpath at the entrance which takes you into the countryside.

St Nicholas Park
• Purchased from retiring park owner
• 50 fifty plots
• Ground rent £1,591 to £1,667pa

FOR SALE

At Wick Farm, pre-owned homes for sale include a 1998 2-bed Omar Sheringham 36x20, £145,000; a 1991 2-bed Tingdene Hayden, £45,000ono. At Bayswater Mill there are a 1998 2-bed Omar Oulton Excel 32x20, £142,000; a 1-bed Omar Oulton Popular 36x10, £55,000. St Nicholas Park has a new Homeseeker Langdale 32x20, from £99,950 subject to final specification. At Bayswater Farm there are two vacant pitches for re-development.

WHAT CAN I DO AROUND HERE?

Go to college – Ruskin College is an Oxford college that specialises in providing educational opportunities for mature students with few or no qualifications – including full degree courses as well as short courses and Easter and Summer Schools. See the website: www.ruskin.ac.uk.

Explore the Cotswolds – Oxford is on the edge of one of England’s prettiest regions, with many villages and small towns built in the traditional honey-coloured stone, including Stow, Charlbury, Broadway, and so on, as well as a host of visitor attractions.

Visit Blenheim Palace – The spectacular Baroque home of the Churchills, the Dukes of Marlborough, and birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, also has 2,100 acres of Capability Brown parkland and is hosting The Spirit of Christmas event until December 14.

Mess about in boats – Oxford has the Thames (also called the Isis here), the Cherwell and the Oxford Canal, so there’s plenty of scope for punting, rowing or motoring, whether in a cruiser or narrow boat. There’s also plenty of fishing in the rivers and canal.

CONTACT

Buswell Parks, Lower Farm, Denton, Oxford OX44 9JL. Tel: 01865 873505. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.buswellparks.co.uk 

• Ground rent from £1,310pa
• Ground rents include water and sewage
• Calor gas and electricity are invoiced by the park; LPG is available in mini bulk tanks on some of the parks but some owners use cylinders purchased from local suppliers
• Over 50% of residents are of working age
• Fifteen families have children ranging from 18 months old to teenagers
• Three generations of one family live on one of the parks
• One couple did a house-swap from park home on site, to bricks and mortar and back to a park home to meet the needs of their growing family and grandchildren.


This review was published in the December 2008 issue of Park & Holiday Homes magazine. To order our latest issue please click here.


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