‘CARAVAN wars’ have broken out over holidaymakers muscling in on a retirement park on the North-East coast.

Bosses at Evergreen Park Limited, something of a rural enterprise success story in recent years following its establishment in the 1970s, want to extend their 28 static home site, near the picturesque east Durham coast at Crimdon, just north of Hartlepool.

But their existing residents, mostly retired people who live on the site permanently, are up in arms that the 16 “executive lodges” proposed would be for holidaymakers.

Many have written to Durham County Council to object to the change of use application for the plot, on the edge of the existing site, just off the A1086 Coast Road, saying the newcomers would be noisy and cause disturbance.

They are also concerned about extra traffic, flooding and that their caravans would lose value.

Blackhalls county councillor Lynn Pounder, speaking for the caravanners, told a special meeting of Durham County Council’s central and east area planning committee held at Durham’s County Hall today (Tuesday, September 22) that they were worried the incomers would disrupt their lifestyle and intrude onto their privacy.

The local parish council, Monk Hesleden, is also opposed, citing concerns over highway safety, noise and disturbance.

On the other side of the argument, local businesses are keen to welcome more visitors and Visit County Durham believes there is a shortage of holiday lodges in the area, which is increasingly popular with tourists following years of work to tidy up the coast and beaches, including the £10m Turning the Tide project.

Cllr Rob Crute, who also represents the Blackhalls, said: “It’s the right type of development but in entirely the wrong place.”

Evergreen’s owners themselves they had transformed the park from a “bottom end” site to a “well managed, well maintained and high quality residential retirement” park, would continue to live on site themselves and would allow nothing but a “high quality, attractive and peaceful facility”.

About seven of every ten people who apply to live at Evergreen are rejected through the strict vetting process, they added.

Council planning officers recommended the application be approved, but a decision was deferred after questions were raised over whether all the objections had been properly reported. The committee will consider the issue again in the near future.