The thorny question of Prebooking

Kennine
Kennine Forum Participant Posts: 3,472
1000 Comments
edited July 2012 in UK Campsites & Touring #1

How often have we all been put off going to a particular CC site, say for a week, because one particular day in the week is indicated on the website as being fully booked. This situation is bad enough if the site is reasonably local, but when a member has planned to tour extensively a particular region, by using a few sites in the area, hundreds of miles from his/her home, it can ruin a holiday. The problem lies with the CC accountant's obsession with equating success of the accounting department by the number of pitch nights pre - booked, irrespective of the fact that many members book and fail to turn up. Instead they should be  looking at this from the club member's perspective. There is an easy solution to this challenge, and that is to ensure that only 80% of pitches on any given site can be pre - booked, so leaving 20% of the pitches available on a first come first served basis, for the tourers among us, those who want to extend their stay for another few nights and those who like to move on when the notion takes us.  I know that unofficially wardens like to, if possible, keep at least one pitch free for emergencies. So why not have an official policy of keeping 20% of pitches free so we can return to the original concept of the CC where members ( tourers) can move from site to site with the minimum of concern about having nowhere to spend the night.