Fife park home community feels ‘abandoned’ during Storm Eowyn

Park homes are alternatives to traditional properties, offering prefabricated or lodge style accommodation within a residential park, and are popular with retirees.

But after the storm, residents of Fordell Gardens found themselves having to spend money on alternative accommodation, source generators or in some cases sit in their cars to stay warm

BBC Scotland News understands a number of park homes and care homes operate on similar lines, with the energy operator registering a central business owner rather than individual home owners for the properties.

SPEN offered emergency aid, external to home owners affected by the storm, which saw over 100,000 customers lose power.

However Fordell Gardens residents did not qualify for the aid, which included hotel stays at SPEN’s expense and compensation for food lost during the outages.

Among those affected was Michael Sherman, 80, who has lived at the site for around two decades.

He said he spent Friday night staying in the bedroom trying to keep warm and that at one stage he “went and sat in the car to try and get a heat.”

Mr Sherman, who is also disabled, eventually booked a hotel on Sunday to stay in using his own money.

He added: “I just thought, ‘I can’t go on with this’ and got the hotel sorted. But I’m lucky enough to be able to afford that at short notice – there’s people living there that couldn’t do that, or didn’t have family to stay with. They just had to get by when it was freezing.”