My nightmare neighbour got my campsite closed after making up false complaints – I’m furious
NIGHTMARE neighbours have forced a pub's campsite to CLOSE after hounding its landlord with complaints - and he's furious.
The pesky locals have complained so many times over the last two years that Charlie Bassett's Pub in Dilhorne, Staffordshire, has had its campsite permit taken away.
Residents nagged landlord Paul Collins about campers' noise and behaviour - one was even rattled by children laughing and playing in the fields.
But Paul claimed the objections have mostly come from one neighbour and are completely untrue.
He called the complaints "fictitious grievances" made up by grumblers, saying they're especially unfounded as he's poured £20,000 into improving the site since he took over earlier this year.
Now Paul is furious the nightmare neighbours could ruin people's late summer holidays.
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The 63-year-old is also terrified that he might also need to close the pub if his fields stop raking in campers' money.
Freedom Camping granted the site's permit for up to 32 tent, motorhome and campervan pitches, but have recently given in to the grouches next-door and removed it.
Paul is fed up that the "long history of bad blood" has gone too far.
He told the : “I’ve felt harassed constantly by one person. I had a text from them saying that they were annoyed by children laughing and playing in the fields. He said ‘it gets on my nerves’.
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"They moaned about the football goal and as a mark of goodwill, I got the goalpost removed.
“Then we had the scooter club come and one of them had a bluetooth speaker. You couldn’t even hear it on the front of the pub. That was another complaint but actually it was boy racers in the village, which was nothing to do with us.
"They claimed we had a disco on the campsite on August 12 and 13 with excessive noise but we didn't.
"A photo on campsite booking site Pitch Up was sent to Freedom Camping saying ‘look it’s overcrowded'. The photograph showed seven caravans.
“Freedom are saying we’ve done nothing wrong in that respect but they’re fed up with noise complaints so they removed the permit.
"It doesn’t matter what I seem to do. I messaged: ‘You come up with a plan, that we can work together with and we can work through it.’ I’ve heard nothing since."
Freedom Camping received complaints over the last two years with allegations of poor sanitation, noise, overcrowding, nuisance behaviour, breaches of the club's terms and conditions and lack of supervision of visitors.
The body claimed that Paul's management of the campsite has not improved enough since the previous leaseholder.
I don’t think the pub will survive without the campsite.
Paul Collins
So he had no choice but to stop taking bookings after the bank holiday weekend.
The landlord, who also runs an inn nearby, is worried about the campsite's closure affecting the .
Without campers' cash every month, Paul might have to close the pub leaving its 20 staff jobless.
He added: "If it affects trade badly, that’s local businesses and local suppliers that will lose out and staff at the pub will be on the dole before Christmas.
"I haven’t worked the figures out yet, but I don’t think the pub will survive without the campsite."
But it's not all doom and gloom.
After Freedom Camping's move to minimise Paul's business, he's going to apply to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council for planning permission instead.
And the campsite boss has been overwhelmed with support since posting about his bad luck yesterday on Facebook.
Paul said: "We will capitalise on the support we've had today. Since my original post we’ve had 24,500 views.
"Every single one of them is ‘what a wonderful job we’ve done’, ‘it’s a sacred place’. This is something we’ve just got to go through unfortunately.
While some of the allegations appeared to be vexatious and had no grounds others were found to be valid.
A spokesman from Freedom Camping
"It’s early days. We will bounce back, we'll get the permission from the council.”
Freedom Camping says it has received "numerous complaints" from local residents relating to the activities at the site since acceptance in 2020.
Although it described some complaints as "vexatious", others were deemed to be "valid".
A spokesman said: "We have investigated allegations of poor sanitation, nuisance behaviour, breaches of the club's terms and conditions and lack of supervision of visitors amongst others.
"While some of the allegations appeared to be vexatious and had no grounds others were found to be valid. In 2021 the site was suspended and issued with an improvement notice, requiring significant changes to be implemented.
"Under new management the site has improved, however the club has not confirmed with the site steward that the improvement notice has been satisfied, therefore the consequences of failure to comply with the improvement notice continue to apply.
"This month the club was informed by Natural England that a complaint had been lodged with them in regard to the activities, for which Natural England directed the complainant to contact the club directly.
"On receipt of the complaint and evidence the club again investigated allegation of nuisance behaviour and excessive numbers of caravans sited. On the balance of evidence the club considers that these activities did occur and therefore further remedial action was required.
"Unfortunately due to the current standing of the site the only available remedial action was to withdraw our support.
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"For clarity the site was exempt from licencing and did not hold a licence, exemption certification is an annual renewed legal right to operate a caravan and camping site under the supervision of an exempt organisation.
"The exemption certificate at Charlie Bassett’s expired on August 18 and due to the decision to withdraw our support the certificate has not been renewed."
