Leaseholders still waiting for holiday park compensation

Former leaseholders at a holiday park which was flooded say they are still waiting for compensation, six months after surrendering their leases.

Medmerry Holiday Park, near Bracklesham, West Sussex, closed after gale-force winds combining with rain and high tides flooded the park in April 2024.

People were offered compensation by Medmerry Opco to terminate their leases early in September last year because of delays with the insurance claim for the flooded site.

Medmerry is part of Cove Communities Holiday Park UK HoldCo Limited (HPUK), one of several firms connected to American business Cove Communities which appointed administrators in November. The main international company is unaffected.

All parties were approached for comment but have not yet responded to the BBC.

While Medmerry Opco is not in administration, the company told leaseholders in March that the administrators were currently "not in a position to make funds available" but were working to "fulfil our obligations".

One of those waiting for compensation is Catherine Jones, from Bagshot in Surrey, who was offered £5,000.

Jones, who paid £15,000 for her leasehold and only stayed in it once, is one of at least 10 people who said they had gone to the small claims court to get the compensation.

"It went very quiet, [with] no confirmation that the deeds had been signed by the company," she said.

"Despite various emails being sent, we've had very little information back."

She said they had been informed that the management of the site had been taken over by another company.

"[People are] generally very upset and let down," Jones said.

"As time's gone on, people have got less and less hopeful that they will see any recompense."

HPUK made a loss of £3.7m in the 12 months prior to September 2025, two months before it and other subsidiaries went into administration.

Administrators Alvarez and Marsal appointed a new company, Arkham Restructuring & Turnaround Solutions, to manage Medmerry Opco which wrote to leaseholders on 30 March that Medmerry was "reliant on funding from the administrators".

It also told leaseholders Medmerry Opco may be placed into an insolvency process if it had to pay out through the small claims court before a "funding solution has been identified".

Jones is part of a group that makes up around half of the 98 leaseholders at Medmerry. She said 10 of them had filed to the small claims court.

Leaseholders at the park paid for the leases which covered a certain amount of years, rather than the actual chalets.

Bob Bailey, from Kent, is one former leaseholder who said he received compensation through the small claims court in February. He said he originally bought the lease for his holiday chalet for around £15,000 in 2016.

The 67-year-old said: "I was trying not to be emotional about it, we had great times there.

"It got to the stage where [there was a] lack of communication from the Cove UK people with everything going on.

"It must have affected a lot of people at Cove all this business."

Cove Communities and Alvarez and Marsal were approached for comment.

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