Our caravans are so disgusting we have to drive a mile to Tesco just to use the TOILET – we are OAPs living in a cesspool – The Sun

RESIDENTS have been forced to use the toilets of a nearby supermarket after a cesspool on their caravan site overflowed.

Every time everyone needed the toiletthey had to get in their car and drive almost a mile to use the swamps at a Tesco supermarket.

Smoking residents of the Old Canal caravan park in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, are fed up with the overflowing cesspoolCredit: Brighton Pictures

Residents have destroyed the conditions in the parkCredit: Brighton Pictures

Every time someone needed the toilet they had to get in their car and drive almost a mile to use the swamps of a Tesco supermarketCredit: Brighton Pictures

The poor souls were forced to do this too bathing with a jug and a bucket after their water supply dwindled to a trickle.

Residents – many of them pensioners – were outraged by the ‘poor’ standards at the caravan park in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.

Carol Peters, 68, said: “We lost our water supply over a week ago Christmas and were forced to travel to Tesco to use the toilet – it was actually ridiculous.

“We had to try to wash dishes with a jug or a cup because there was only a small trickle of water coming out of the taps. It was really poor.”

Ms Peters, a retired GP practice manager, said: “The problem is the cesspool that keeps moving backwards and spilling over to nearby fields and gardens.

“It is a real health hazard.”

Pauline Fitzpatrick, 78, lived on the Old Canal Camping for 17 years and is sick of the problems there.

“It’s shocking,” she fumed, adding: “The cesspool has now been repaired, but we don’t know for how long.

‘It does stink, so something is wrong and God knows what it will be like in the summer. There’s clearly something wrong with it.

“When the water stopped, we couldn’t wash or do anything for days. The least we can expect in the 21st century is clean running water.

“It was basically a nightmare,” she said. “We just had to put up with not washing. It was ridiculous and not very hygienic for us.”

Mrs Fitzpatrick, a retired credit controller and secretary of the Old Canal Residents Association, has been in contact with the owners to secure improvements to the site.

“People are at their wits’ end,” she said.

She added: “A disabled resident was recently left without electricity and had to go outside in the rain and wind to get help. It’s not fair.”

It has now emerged that the owners of Old Canal Caravan Park have received an injunction ordering them to take action.

The Arun District Council licensing committee meeting was told there had been problems with drainage on the site for about two years.

The council had issued an enforcement notice over the sewage treatment plant, but it was not complied with by the site owner, a councilor said.

Cllr Trevor Bence said the problem was not limited to the caravan park as overflowing waste from the cesspool would end up in the ditches and canals around Bognor.

Resident, Dennis Fitzpatrick, 76, added: “This simply cannot continue.

‘We need the municipality to roll up its sleeves and solve the problem. It is a health hazard.

“We had no water for over a week and I had to go to my brother’s house around the corner to use his facilities. It’s just not happening and we have to do something about it.”