Clayton Caravan Park: Fife site hails permission for 39 new pitches

Family-run Clayton Caravan Park, which unveiled a new £2.2m leisure centre complex for the park at the end of last year, says the newly approved pitches will help satisfy growing demand for places.

The park was given approval for 171 pitches at the end of 2016 and says almost all of these have sold out.

“The application site forms a natural and logical extension to the existing park and is well contained in the landscape,” it said in a statement.

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“There is clearly a site specific locational need for the proposal which would involve the sensitive expansion of the existing holiday caravan park and would be of a scale and nature compatible with surrounding land uses.

“The proposal will integrate well with the existing caravan park, will provide much needed and valued holiday accommodation to help meet the continuing tourism demand in North East Fife, will safeguard existing natural heritage assets and will have no material impact on the local road network or other infrastructure facilities and services.”

Fife Council has reviewed the application and concluded that it is acceptable under current planning guidelines.

Case officer Jamie Penman, writing in his handling report of the application, said council officers had raised no significant concerns over the expansion’s visual impact, effect on local roads or ramifications for the environment, including the adjacent River Eden.

“The proposed development is compliant with development in the countryside policies and has a locational justification for this site,” he said.

“The proposal is likely to have a minimal landscape and visual impact as it would be apparent from some views from the south.

“This impact is not considered significant and the development would appear as a proportionate extension to the existing caravan park.”

He approved the application with conditions attached to restrict the use of the caravans to holiday use and to ensure the development complies with flood prevention guidelines.

Clayton currently has pitches for 552 static holiday home caravans, 50 residential park homes, 30 seasonal tourers and 8 hire units. The newly approved units will take the total number of pitches to 679.