Caravan park closure rumours quashed DAMAGING and potentially malicious rumours that a …”

Caravan park closure rumours quashed DAMAGING and potentially malicious rumours that a caravan park faces closure have been strongly refuted by its owners. Plans for housing adjacent to Braids Caravan Park at Gretna are believed to have sparked the claims which may have already prompted one set of customers to remove their caravan. Owner Isabel Scott said: “Rumour has come from several directions that Braids Caravan Park, which we own, is being closed to be sold for housing and it’s not.” With rumours surfacing at the weekend, she added: “The rumours came from of our caravaners. One had been to Melrose, and she came back with this story and they took their caravan away, which was in storage. “And somebody else came in to get gas, and he asked where he would get gas when we closed down.” Mrs Scott says plans are underway to construct houses on adjacent fields also owned by the caravan park’s landlord, Hadrian Homes. But she said: “The houses haven’t started being built yet, and there’s only going to be two to start with, and they’re way, way up outside the caravan park.” Instead, Mrs Scott says she and husband John believe someone with a grudge against Braids may be responsible for circulating the claims. The park was established in 1956, and has about 80 touring pitches across six acres. Asked about their lease on the caravan park site, Mrs Scott said: “I have nothing written down, because the landlord and his wife and John and I are extremely friendly, and have been for years, and he’s not the sort of landlord that would just turn around and say, ‘That’s it’.” Mrs Scott admits that the landlords’ housing development might affect the park in four or five years’ time, but says the park will continue to operate. Hadrian Homes have backed the Scott’s stance. Jim Dalgliesh from the company said: “We are planning a new development in Gretna, and it will mean that part of the caravan park will disappear in due course.” Describing it as an extension to the Hawthorns, he added: “It’ll not affect the viability of the caravan park at all.” But with the damaging rumours of closure still circulating, a frustrated Mrs Scott said: “We’re a little business and we cannot afford to lose customers, and that sort of news spreads faster than good news.”

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