The British staycation is no longer a passing trend. Year after year, more guests are choosing to holiday closer to home, and they arrive with higher expectations than ever.
They want comfortable lodges, characterful glamping, proper amenities and the kind of extras that turn a single visit into an annual booking. For you as a park owner, that shift is a genuine commercial opportunity. The question is a practical one: is your site ready to make the most of it?
For many operators, the honest answer is that the ambition is there but the route to delivery is not yet clear. Adding pitches, building new accommodation, upgrading facilities or changing how part of a site is used all depend on planning permission. And planning, particularly in the attractive rural and coastal locations where holiday parks tend to sit, is rarely straightforward. This is where we come in.
Planning expertise built for parks
We are the planning team at Batcheller Monkhouse, a long-established, multidisciplinary firm of Chartered Surveyors, Chartered Town Planners and Estate and Letting Agents. As an employee-owned business, we take a long-term view of our client relationships, and that comes through in how we work: practical, personal and genuinely focused on your outcome. We advise holiday and caravan park owners, landowners and estates across the country.
For you, our most valuable strength is the depth of experience we bring to leisure and rural diversification schemes. We advise on the process of a park’s development. New pitches and lodges, glamping and farm stays, amenity buildings, play areas, spas, extensions and refurbishments all fall squarely within our expertise. So do the less visible but equally important pieces of work, such as site appraisals, changes of use, and appeals and enforcement matters when a project needs defending or putting back on track.
Whatever stage your plans have reached, we have the relevant skill set close at hand.
Why specialist advice pays for itself
Park sites rarely sit in simple locations. Many of the most appealing holiday destinations lie within or close to National Parks, National Landscapes (formerly known as AONBs) or other protected landscapes, where the planning bar is higher and applications are more demanding. You may well meet questions around landscape and visual impact, highways and access, ecology and drainage, and the wording of historic occupancy conditions that were never designed with today’s holiday market in mind.
None of this should prevent a good scheme. Applications simply need to be prepared properly. We have built our reputation on anticipating a local planning authority’s concernsbefore they are raised and obtaining quality consents. We have secured permission for a wide range of glamping, achieved approvals for additional holiday accommodation on established parks, and supported a variety of farm and estate diversification projects. That experience matters, because it means the advice you receive from us is grounded in what actually obtainsapproval.
From vision to consent
Before you commit any significant time or money, we start with a site appraisal: an honest view of what your land can realistically support, where the genuine opportunities lie, and where the obstacles are most likely to appear. A clear feasibility view at this point protects your investment and shapes a stronger proposal. It also avoids the costly frustration of designing a scheme that was never likely to be approved.
From there, we manage the whole journey for you. We coordinate any specialist consultants your project needs, prepare and submit your applications, negotiate with case officers, respond to neighbour and consultee comments, discharge or vary conditions, and, where necessary, take a refused proposal to appeal or resolve enforcement issues. Throughout, we keep the process clear and manageable, so that running your park and developing it do not have to pull against each other.
Staying ahead of policy change
The planning system is not standing still, and you feel the effects directly. The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, a revised National Planning Policy Framework, changes to how planning committees operate, and the continuing amendments to Biodiversity Net Gain all influence how applications are judged and what supporting information is required. Biodiversity Net Gain in particular has real consequences for any scheme that expands a site’s built footprint, and getting the approach right at the outset can save you considerable cost and delay later.
Keeping pace with all of this is part of our service. We monitor policy and local plan developments wherever our clients operate, and provide practical guidance, so you can act at the right moment with the right evidence.
Let’s talk this September
We will once again be exhibiting at The Glamping Show at the NAEC Stoneleigh from 10 to 12 September. It is one of the highlights of our year and a genuinely useful place to talk your ideas through in person. Whether your project is still a sketch or a scheme ready to submit, we will happily discuss the options, share relevant examples, and give you a candid view of what is achievable on your site.
If you own or manage a park and you are thinking about how to grow it, our message is simple. The earlier we start the planning conversation, the more value we can add, and the smoother your path from vision to consent.
Planning, made simple.
Talk to us – 01892 509280
