Wednesday November 5th 2025
Seton Sand Holiday Park, Post Seton
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
A holiday park which has been operating on the East Lothian coast for over 100 years is to be open for residents throughout the festive season for the first time this year.
Seton Sand, on Port Seton, traditionally closed during the week in December with its residents and visitors allowed to stay weekends only after November 30 until December 23.
However a meeting of East Lothian Council’s planning committee this week agreed to a request to extend the visiting times by an extra 15 days.
The park, which is operated by Haven Leisure Ltd, said around three quarters of its caravans on the site were owned and its residents had asked for more time to stay in the winter.
Like most holiday parks it has to close for a certain amount of time each year to ensure it is not used as a permanent home by those who stay there.
A spokesman for the site said: “Owners have always had a demand to stay a little longer and to be honest if felt a little odd to be only able to stay weekends in December and then for two weeks over Christmas and New Year. It felt a little disjointed.
“As an industry we are recognising there is a demand and we have an asset that is being unused three or four months of the year.”
He added that at Seton Sands it would be a change of only an additional 15 days of opening adding that other Haven parks have already rolled out trials of more festive opening and found it has worked.
He said: “We are considering how we can use an asset for the area which has not been used before, the park has been there since 1924 so this will be the first year in a hundred years that we will have done this.
Current conditions allow caravans to be occupied seven days per week between March 1 and November 30 and then weekends only until Christmas even when full time occupancy is allowed until January 7 when the park is closed.
Local ward member Councillor Colin Yorkston said he was fully supportive of the application.
He told the meeting: “The holiday park is an asset to the local community, it bring money into the local community and I think just extending it for 15 days which is fairly marginal will benefit the local economy and community.”
Fellow ward members Councillors Neil Gilbert agreed adding: “This will boost tourism and the ward.”
The committee unanimously agreed the changes to the site use which were covered in two separate applications put before them.
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