D-Day for elderly in battle to save homes

East Riding councillors are due to meet this month to consider a planning application by the owners of Lakeminster Park, near Beverley, which would allow them to carry on living in their homes all year round.

Many of the residents sold their own homes to move into what they thought were permanent homes, but East Riding Council said they should only be used for holidays.

Planners have not yet said whether they back or recommend refusal of the application, which may be heard on March 15. The Environment Agency objects because of the risk of flooding and the Beverley and North Holderness Drainage Board says the development has been built too close to a watercourse and that adjacent homes “should be relocated or removed”.

More than half of the residents are considering legal action in connection with the purchase of their homes. In a letter, Gosschalks solicitors says “most if not all” of the 44 households they represent would have to be rehoused, describing the costs of such a move as “against the public interest”.

Woodmansey Parish Council voted to back the proposals and Beverley Town Council is not objecting.

Residents have written letters to the council highlighting their personal circumstances and pleading for compassion. Many are elderly and suffering from debilitating ill-health.

Resident Alan Coates, who heads the residents’ group, said: “There has been a powerful lobby from residents to look at this sympathetically and acknowledge that the residents are not the cause of this situation. We are victims of what happened and the council has a corporate responsibility to put things right – that is part of their declared corporate objectives.”