Holiday Park Security Sussex

For roughly half the year, a Sussex holiday park is one of the busiest, most lived-in places on the coast — hundreds of families, lights on every pitch, the bar busy until late, and a steady flow of cars on the access road from morning until night. Then, between early November and mid-March, almost all of that disappears. The site office goes part-time, the clubhouse closes, and a coastal patch holding hundreds of static caravans, lodges and amenity buildings is left standing dark and quiet for months at a time.

From Selsey and Bracklesham across to Bognor Regis, Pagham, Climping, Littlehampton, Pevensey Bay and Camber Sands, the off-season pattern repeats every year. Empty static caravans worth £30,000 to £100,000 each, packed full of TVs, white goods, copper plumbing and gas bottles, sit in long rows facing the sea — with no one watching most of them most of the time. For park operators, owners' associations and individual static-caravan owners, the off-season is the single highest-risk window in the calendar. It's also the one with the most predictable solution.

Headline figures drawn from published reporting by the British Holiday & Home Parks Association (BH&HPA), the National Caravan Council (NCC), insurer Caravan Guard and Sussex Police rural and business crime reporting.

Why Holiday And Caravan Parks Are Different

A static caravan park isn't a single building, isn't a single owner, and isn't easy to defend with the playbook that works for a warehouse or an office block. Three structural features push the security problem into a category of its own.

Sprawl. Even a mid-size Sussex coastal park can hold 200–500 units across many acres, with multiple roads, several hundred pitches, amenity blocks scattered across the site and a perimeter that can run for over a mile.

Split ownership. Park operators own the land and the amenity buildings. Individual owners own the static vans on their pitches. Some lodges are park-owned holiday lets. Touring pitches are different again. Off-season responsibility for each of these is rarely defined as clearly as people assume — and the gaps are exactly where incidents land.

Coastal exposure. Sussex coastal parks are exposed to storms, salt damage, flood risk and the kind of dark, weather-locked nights that mean small noises, broken windows or forced doors blend into the wider sound of the weather. The damage from a winter storm and the damage from a break-in look similar from a distance.

The result is a site that's bigger than a warehouse, more dispersed than a housing estate, and managed by a smaller off-season team than either. Hard to defend by default — but very defensible with the right plan.

"By the time the owner pulls onto their pitch in late March, the broken back window has been weathered for four months. The damage is done; the chance to stop it has been gone since November."

The Off-Season Risk Profile

The same blend of threats shows up across Sussex holiday parks year after year. Knowing the spread is the basis of a credible off-season security plan.

Static caravan and lodge break-ins

The headline risk — entry through back windows, French doors and roof-light hatches, with TVs, appliances, copper plumbing, kitchenware and personal contents removed in a single hit. Crews work systematically across rows of vans once they know nobody is watching. A single night's incident can affect ten, twenty or more units on a sprawling site.

LPG and gas bottle theft

One of the most consistent and least-reported categories. Gas cylinders are easy to remove from the side of a van, have an established resale market, and the disconnection itself creates both a safety risk and a follow-on cost. Replacement bottle, hose, regulator and gas-safe certification stack up fast.

Hot tubs, decking and outdoor kit

Hot tubs, bin stores, garden furniture, decking boards, BBQs, parasols, bikes left in storage boxes and water-sports equipment in lockers all disappear over winter. Most of it is rarely insured at full value and almost never recovered.

Park machinery and grounds equipment

Ride-on mowers, golf buggies, ATVs, leaf blowers, hedge cutters, tools from the maintenance workshop and fuel from the grounds compound — the operator's side of the off-season loss list. We covered the operational angle on fuel storage in our piece on fuel theft from site compounds.

Clubhouse, amenity block and arcade theft

Bars, kitchens, gyms, swimming-pool plant rooms, arcade machines and reception areas hold catering equipment, AV, alcohol stocks and tills. Forced entry to the main amenity building is a known winter target.

Lead, copper and metal

Lead from clubhouse and reception roofs, copper from plumbing, cabling from external runs and ironwork from amenity buildings. The same pressures we set out in our copper theft guide apply directly to coastal park amenity blocks.

Squatting, trespass and antisocial behaviour

Empty parks attract trespass, rough sleeping in unsecured units, antisocial behaviour around amenity blocks, and occasional unauthorised occupation of lodges. Each one carries its own safeguarding, liability and reputational risk.

Storm-window opportunism

Genuine storm damage — wind-blown panels, broken windows, dislodged decking — is the cover under which a meaningful share of off-season incidents are run. Forced entry blends in, the noise blends in, and by the time an owner sees the photos in the WhatsApp group, the actual cause is impossible to pin down.

The Anatomy Of An Off-Season Incident

Most significant incidents on an unprotected Sussex holiday park follow a recognisable five-stage pattern. Knowing the shape is the first step to interrupting it.

Why "The Site Office Is Locked" Isn't A Plan

The default approach to the off-season — site office closed, gates padlocked, maintenance team in twice a week, owners' WhatsApp groups doing the rest — has three structural weaknesses against what's actually targeting these sites.

It assumes the perimeter is the line. Most Sussex coastal parks have multiple access points, public footpaths nearby, beach access at the edge and gaps in the fence that even regular users know about. A locked main gate does very little for the back third of the site.
It assumes someone will spot it. Owners can't watch their van from a hundred miles away. Maintenance teams aren't there at 2am. Neighbours on the pitch next door are also somewhere else for the winter.
It assumes one attempt. With no active monitoring, a site that survives the first week of November will be assessed, tested and revisited across the next four months until something gives.

A managed off-season security plan replaces all three weaknesses with active, recorded, proportionate cover — and it scales from a single mobile patrol on a small park to fully manned overnight cover on a larger one.

Caretaker Check vs Managed Off-Season Cover

Here's how the two approaches compare against the realistic threat facing a closed Sussex park.

Six Layers Of Protection For A Sussex Holiday Park

Every park is different — but a credible off-season security plan stacks the same six layers, sized to the site, the perimeter and the value at risk. These are the components we build into every park and vacant property contract along the Sussex coast.

The Sussex Holiday Park Off-Season Security Checklist

Use the following before you lock the main gate for the season. Park operators can take most of it directly; individual static owners can use it as a conversation starter with the park manager and their insurer.

1 · Inventory and document the site

Number of units, ownership split, amenity buildings, fuel and gas locations, maintenance compound, high-value plant. The documentation is the foundation of any decent off-season plan — and the basis of any claim.

2 · Lock down every access point — not just the main gate

Back roads, beach access, footpath stiles, contractor gates and the gap in the fence everyone politely ignores. The strongest perimeter is only as good as its weakest gap.

3 · Manage gas, fuel and high-value stores

LPG bottles isolated, removed or chained where the operator's policy allows; bulk fuel fenced and alarmed; grounds machinery locked into a single secured compound rather than scattered across the site.

4 · Coordinate owner inspection routines

A documented schedule of owner inspections — drained systems, isolated supplies, photos sent back — to satisfy individual insurer warranties, paired with the operator's own site patrols.

5 · Run an active, recorded patrol regime

Aligned to BS 7499 (static guarding and mobile patrolling) and BS 7984 (key holding and alarm response), with randomised timing, electronic checkpoints and incident reports your insurer and owners' association would both accept as evidence.

6 · Plan around storms and bank holidays

Storms create cover for incursions; bank holidays — particularly the late autumn and early spring ones — see spikes in opportunist trespass. Heavier cover across these windows is one of the highest-leverage spend decisions a park can make. The same seasonal logic we set out in our winter security guide applies directly.

7 · Brief the team and the owners

Maintenance staff, grounds team and any owners who do over-winter on site all need to know who to call, what to report and what the patrol pattern looks like. Pair that with SIA-licensed officers on the ground and you have a control system that actually works.

8 · Plug into the local network

Sussex Police business and rural crime teams, BH&HPA briefings, neighbouring parks and your security provider's local intelligence — sites that are plugged in are sites that are harder to surprise.

How Advance Guarding Protects Sussex Holiday Parks

We protect holiday parks, caravan parks, lodge sites and touring grounds right across the Sussex coast — including Selsey, Bognor Regis, Chichester, Littlehampton, Lancing, Shoreham and the rural coastal villages — with off-season security plans built around the site, the operator and the owners.

Every deployment is staffed by SIA-licensed officers, supported by mobile and dog patrols, live-monitored CCTV, 24/7 key holding and alarm response, and director-level oversight on every contract. As a local Sussex team, we can be on site for a free survey within days — and on patrol with a fully built plan well before the last weekend of the season.

The off-season comes around at the same time every year. The parks that come back open in March with no incidents to report are almost always the ones that planned for it before they closed.