A holiday park is a Legionella problem with grass between the buildings. Long buried pipe runs feed pitches that sit empty for weeks. Shower blocks run hot in August and freeze in February. The water sits, warms, and stagnates in exactly the places you can’t see.

That single fact, water sitting still at warm temperatures, drives almost everything you need to do. Get flushing and temperature control right across the seasons and you have dealt with the bulk of the risk. Ignore it over a quiet winter and you can hand the first guests of the season a system that has been incubating bacteria since October.

The core principle for a park is simple to say and tedious to deliver: keep water moving, keep hot water hot and cold water cold, and keep a record that proves both. The tedium is the point. Parks fail on consistency, not on knowledge.

The three problems parks have that offices don’t

Most generic Legionella advice assumes a building that is occupied five days a week with short, simple pipework. A park breaks all three assumptions, so the control regime has to be built around the differences.

Seasonal occupancy. A park that closes November to March has water standing in pipes, calorifiers and showers for months. When you reopen, that water can carry a Legionella population that built up undisturbed. The reopening flush is not a formality, it is the single highest-risk moment in your year. Treat the start-of-season recommission with the same seriousness HSE applies to bringing any unused system back into use [1].

Communal shower blocks. Showers produce fine aerosol, which is the main route Legionella reaches the lungs [2]. A shared block with a dozen heads, some of which barely get used midweek, is a textbook spray risk. Showerheads and hoses scale up, harbour biofilm, and need a defined cleaning and descaling routine, not an occasional wipe.

Long, dead-leg-prone runs. Feeding static pitches and amenity blocks often means long underground runs, capped spurs to pitches that aren’t connected, and sections that only see flow when one particular van is occupied. Every capped spur is a dead leg. Cold mains buried in summer-warm ground can drift well above the temperature you’d expect for cold water, undoing the “keep cold water cold” half of the strategy.

Applying the principle across a real park

Take an illustrative, composite park: a mix of touring pitches, static holiday homes, two shower-and-toilet blocks, a clubhouse with a kitchen, and an outdoor spray park for kids. Closed December to mid-March. Here is how the same principle plays out in each setting.

The shower blocks. These need the tightest grip. Hot water should reach outlets hot and cold water should stay cold, with the figures your risk assessment sets in line with HSG274 [3]. Where thermostatic mixing valves protect guests from scalding, remember the blended water sitting in the showerhead is in the risk zone, so those heads need regular cleaning and descaling. Little-used heads in a quiet midweek period should be flushed on a defined schedule; weekly is a common baseline for outlets that aren’t getting regular use [4].

The static pitches. A static that’s been empty for three weeks has cold and hot stagnating in its own pipework plus the spur feeding it. When a van turns over between guests, that changeover is your flushing opportunity, run every outlet through for long enough to draw fresh water from the main. Capped spurs to disconnected pitches should be physically removed back to the live pipe, not just valved off, because a closed valve still leaves a dead leg behind it.

The clubhouse and spray park. Kitchen and bar outlets used daily are lower risk because they turn over. The children’s spray park is the opposite, an aerosol-generating water feature that needs its own assessment and, if recirculating, water treatment to match. A spa or hot tub on site moves you into HSG282 territory, which is a stricter regime again [5].

The trade-off worth naming: you can’t flush everything every day on a park with hundreds of outlets. The pragmatic call is to risk-rank outlets, flush the genuinely little-used ones on schedule, and lean on natural turnover for the busy ones, with your risk assessment justifying where you draw the line.

Field checklist: the park year

Group your tasks by season and make each one recordable, with a date, a reading and a name against it. Print it for the maintenance team or, better, put it on a digital logbook so a missed weekly flush flags itself instead of hiding in a folder.

Pre-season recommission (before first guests):

  • Flush every outlet, hot and cold, until water runs to temperature
  • Clean, descale and disinfect all showerheads and hoses
  • Check and record hot water storage and outlet temperatures against your risk-assessment figures
  • Confirm cold water at outlets is below your assessed cold-water target
  • Inspect cold water storage tanks for condition, lids, insulation and debris
  • Walk the site for capped spurs and dead legs created since last season

In-season (recurring):

  • Flush little-used outlets on the defined schedule and log each one
  • Record monthly sentinel hot and cold temperatures
  • Clean and descale shower heads on the set frequency
  • Flush every static and touring pitch at guest changeover
  • Check TMV-served outlets and blended temperatures
  • Inspect tanks and any spray features per your assessment

End-of-season shutdown:

  • Decide drain-down versus keep-warm-and-circulate, and record the rationale
  • If draining, drain fully so nothing sits part-filled
  • Label isolated sections so next spring’s recommission catches them
  • Schedule the reopening flush before you lock up

A caveat worth reading twice

This is general guidance to help a park operator ask the right questions, not a control scheme. Every park’s pipework, occupancy pattern and water source is different, so the temperatures, frequencies and methods here only become real once a competent person has carried out a site-specific Legionella risk assessment to BS 8580-1 and written them into your scheme [6]. The figures named in HSE guidance are the starting expectation; your assessment sets the numbers you actually work to.

If a guest or worker develops Legionnaires’ disease and it’s linked to work activity, reporting duties under RIDDOR may apply, so know that route before you need it [7].

FAQ

Do touring caravan pitches with standpipes count?

Yes, if the standpipe is your responsibility and feeds drinking or washing water. A standpipe that’s rarely used is a dead leg with a tap on the end. Include it in your flushing schedule and check the spur back to the main isn’t a stagnant length.

Who is the duty holder on a park with let static homes?

Whoever controls the premises and the water system carries the duty, and for accommodation you let to others that responsibility doesn’t disappear because a guest is staying [8]. If you own the system feeding the vans, the practical control sits with you, and the risk assessment should name the responsible person clearly.

Is a quick visual check enough at reopening?

No. The reopening flush plus recorded temperatures is what demonstrates control after months of standing water. A glance at the showers tells you nothing about what’s grown in the pipework you can’t see.

Your next step today: walk one shower block and one long-empty static with a thermometer, write down what the cold and hot actually read at the furthest outlet, and you’ll know within an hour whether your real risk is stagnation, temperature, or both.

Sources

[1] HSE, “Legionnaires’ disease - what you must do”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/what-you-must-do/index.htm [2] CDC, “How Legionella Spreads”. https://www.cdc.gov/legionella/causes/index.html [3] HSE, “Legionnaires’ disease: Technical guidance (HSG274)”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/hsg274.htm [4] HSE, “Hot and cold water systems”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/hot-and-cold.htm [5] HSE, “Control of legionella and other infectious agents in spa-pool systems (HSG282)”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/hsg282.htm [6] BSI, “BS 8580-1:2019 - Risk assessments for Legionella control. Code of practice”. https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/products/water-quality-risk-assessments-for-legionella-control-code-of-practice-1 [7] HSE, “RIDDOR - Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/ [8] HSE, “Legionella and landlords’ responsibilities”. https://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/legionella-landlords-responsibilities.htm