Campsites

(as with most things in France, these regulations may vary from region to region and you would be well advised to check out locally before offering anything more than rough advice to clients)

An authorisation is necessary as soon as there are more than 20 campers or 6 placements at a time. Under this quantity, for your land to be used by campers, you need to declare the usage at the local town hall (Mairie). In certain cases (eg Camping à la ferme), further permission may be granted once the department’s tourist action commission have advised accordingly.

Since the act of 29 March 1984, there is no single authorisation rule for caravanning, as camping and caravanning merged into one. The Mayor in the name of the commune authorises the Campsite if there is a POS (zoning/ordinance) or by the Prefecture in the name of the state if there is no POS present.

The request for authorisation must include :

an information sheet
an ordinance map 1/10,000 scale
a plan of land layout
an itinerary of works
a plan of the premises (inc all buildings)
a ruling confirming how the site will function
required documents (where necessary) relating to building permits or declaration of works to be carried out

8. study or note of impact - whether the project is for more or less than 200 placements

It is obligatory to consult the department’s tourist action commission. A public enquiry is necessary for any projects for more than 200 new placements, situated in a village which, at the time of the request, had no POS.

The authorisation to install a campsite will take into account the layout and will prove there is no opposition to the declaration of works to be carried out - and the local taxes will be determined from this authorisation also.

There are two standard prohibitions to campsite installation :

1) National prohibition - camping is prohibited by the edge of the sea and within 100m of the sea, as well as 200m from any public water consumption area. It is also prohibited in historically protected areas (ancient monuments, etc).

2) Local prohibition - apart from land already converted for use as campsite, the mayor of the village can, temporarily or permanently prohibit camping or caravanning if he feels there is a risk of disturbing the peace or a risk of security to the local people.

The zoning plan in itself can show up certain prohibitions with a view to protective sites and whether there is sufficient land to create the campsite. The region’s Prefecture decides on the grading of the site, following advice from the department’s tourist action committee and on the basis of a “visit report”. The Prefecture has 3 months to come to a decision and once this period has passed, the grading is recognised as agreed for the requested category. The decision is linked with special categories indicated in a decree of 11/1/93 (classified sites, ancient monuments, etc.).

Campsite security - Basically, there needs to be sufficient access for the caravans but also for the fire service, easy entrance and exit for campers - various reference articles need to be referred to and consultation with the department’s security council and the tourist action commission. These rules need to be respected or the authorisation for the campsite can be denied or the campsite closed if already open. Some special zones of high natural disaster would need to be covered by specific rules for those areas. Out of 10,000 campsites in France (more now), there are 3,870 which could be affected by the above details - however, this does not mean they will be closed but they need to be conscious of security for human life in case of exceptional circumstances.

Possibilities for Small Campsites - We spoke to the French Federation of Camping and Caravaning to get an idea of the likelihood of a campsite on land of 1-2 hectares and have the following information which more or less summarises what you have just read.

You can have 6 camping placements without going through the whole procedure of requesting authorisation from the department, by simply placing your declaration at the Mairie of the village. 6 placements comes under Camping à la Ferme.
Should you wish to have more placements, the next section up is Aire Naturel de Camping. You can have up to 25 placements in this section, but you do need to put through a request for authorisation to the Prefecture.
Whichever you decide, the first port of call is the Mairie of the village - if they foresee no problems with regard to the local environment, it is a very good sign.

Purchasing subject to creating a camping/caravan site

Clients wishing to purchase a property specifically to create a camping/caravan site should be aware of the following :-

Full planning permission needs to be obtained from the Prefecture of the

department and therefore the suspensive condition :

“Subject to planning permission for a campsite” would not necessarily be accepted by the vendor.

The equivalent of outline planning permission would be the agreement from the local Mayor that he sees no reason why there should be a problem and that he is favourable to the idea. In this case, the suspensive condition would be indicated as : “Subject to the mayor’s favourable agreement for a campsite”
As indicated in the rules and regulations, all that is needed for Camping à la Ferme (6 placements) is the mayor’s verbal agreement - therefore if the client only requires this number of placements, above condition would definitely suffice.
For a client requiring a minimum of 25 placements, as indicated in the rules and regulations, the initial request needs to be given to the mayor but he will have to present a full proposal to the Prefecture for their decision. They may wish to highlight the number of placements within their suspensive condition: Subject to the mayor’s favourable agreement for a campsite of up to 25 placements
For a client requiring permission for a larger campsite, the decision as to whether they can hold out in the compromis for full permission has really got to be down to a vendor - there is no reason why a vendor should be asked to wait over a year to complete on a sale; however, if this suits the vendor then that could work well for both partie