Booking a hard standing pitch
Comments
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yes +1. All I'm bothered about is what is in my pitch and can I enjoy my time away on it. Also bothered about clean and good showers, but after that what the site looks like is not even on my list of things that affect the holiday.
Maybe those that complain about the car park effect or whatever spend much of their time on site? For us if it's summer we're off site till after 6, if its winter it's too dark to notice.
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That only applies to a handful of sites and only refers to certain sections within a site. Over the years I have regularly stayed overnight at Blackhorse Farm and don't recall pitches being delineated by paint. Some in the ferry area do have cones with a blue pegs in them but as you are only ever going to stay there for an overnight stop it's not a problem. Kj mentions a few sites with the arrangement you mention of unseparated pitches but they only form a tiny proportion of the total pitches.
David
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I recall doing an overnight on a site in middle England some years ago where the whole site was concrete, marked out with paint. It has previously been an airfield and the pitches were all on the former runway.
I wonder if it is still there?
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Is anyone travelling from Gibraltar to the club site at Morvich between a rock and a hard place?
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sites that look like car parks (those with acres of gravel) will look like car parks irrespective of how long one spends on them.
Like many others, we spend most of each day away from the site, but this doesnt change the 'look' of a site. an unattractive site is just that...
they might look like meadows, but grass pitches shouldnt look like car parks.....how many town car parks are grass?
most of them are gravel or other forms of HS.
If the club swapped white lines for their white pegs, the job would be complete....and perhaps fees could be collected with a parking meter at the entrance
good aesthetic design is no more difficult to acheive than its poor equivalent.....gravel rectangles are not at all attractive and do they really do more than a decently drained grass pitch during most of 'the season' when, of course, we have our wonderful weather
?i pitched (for one night) on a gravel pitch in January at Chapel Lane, the weather then was pretty dry and this HS wasn't a necessity.
the surface was basically large chippings which are not nice to walk or sit on.
compare this to last week at Wareham/Furzebrook with all grass beautifully mown field, step out of the van without shoes, sit around, tend the BBQ, pour the drinks etc all without fear of stepping on a sharp stone....much more like the camping experience i like for the time we are on site.
as Steve (and others) suggests, perhaps getting the pitch ratio right just need the price ratio right to ensure the take up ratio is correct.
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Only place outside I would walk in bare feet is a sandy beach, even then I would be very careful!
BB, it is a sad fact that the weather in UK is too unreliable to make grass pitches viable all the time, even in summer. As a caravanner who uses a mover I find that the slightest bit of wet grass results in wet tyres which the mover struggles to get a grip on and makes moving on wet grass the last thing I really want to be having to do.
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Melrose is one of our favourite sites, I think that area you are talking about is possibly down in the area behind reception?
One time we were there it had been very wet, the downhill side of our HS pitch was flooded, and there were huge puddles on the tarmac bit. Took a while to drain away!
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...but isnt that a result of using a mover (sounds like poor design to me or do they have 'all weather' movers?)
....anyone using the car to manoevre the van wouldnt notice this and would surely deem the pitch totally suitable?
surely a pitch cant be deemed unsuitable just because of a little drizzle on it? i thought 'unsuitable grass pitches' resulted in folk being bogged down and sinking.....?
i think different folk must have different views on what makes a pitch 'unsuitable'....
'my mover doesnt work' seems like something i wouldnt have considered.
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As you have not had a caravan BB, you will not be aware that it can sometimes be difficult to position the van precisely on the pitch just by using the car.
With a long outfit and narrow site roads, this becomes even more difficult, especially if there are cars or vans near the road on opposite pitches, even though I am perfectly capable of reversing the van reasonably accurately.
With easy access and a gravel pitch I can more or less reverse exactly to the peg.
The van weighs 1900kg, we cannot move it by hand, that is why we use a mover. Being a twin axle, when it turns it can do a lot of damage to grass, especially if the ground is soft, and the mover losing grip on wet, muddy wheels does not help . There is also the motion of the jockey wheel to consider, and the fact that there will be a load approaching 100kg on it. It does not take long for it to get stuck on soft ground. I prefer not to cause damage to pitches.
There is no problem when moving on gravel, or any other hard surface, including baked soil.
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yes behind reception. Yes some pitches there flood quite badly there but only after heavy rain, we know which they are and avoid them!
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youre absolutely right Alan
but, i dont get how a damp pitch (caused by a 'heavy dew') makes it u suitable when its the slippage of a mover thats the issue rather than the slippage anywhere on the pitch.
a wet pitch may be 'unsuitable' for Kjell, for the reasons he cites, but my point is it doesnt warrant the removal of 'damp pitches' from service, nor for them to replaced by more gravel areas post haste.
in winter time, when grass pitches do get towads an 'insuitable (for all) state, they are taken out of service, but at a time when demand is far lower and the (say) 20% reduction in capacity is generally not an issue due to reduced demand at that time of year.
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agreed, AD, back to 'booking a HS pitch'.....
in a nutshell, if the club deems it desrable to provide choice on awning/non awning bookings for its members, (without this confusing them nor having a detrimental effect on bookings) it seems perfectly logical to extend that choice to members with regard to HS/grass.
the resons given by the club for the failure to proceed with the implementation pf the HS/grass choice, could equally be applied to the awning/non situation, yet not a squeak on this front.
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agreed, Alan. but its no different to those members who go elsewhere because only non-awning pitches are available on mixed pitch sites.
the situation is the same as soon as any 'pitch types' are brought in.
it seems that the club is aware of the potential issue when it comes to HS/grass (and has withdrawn the customer choice as a result) yet is indifferent to the same issue regarding awning/non-awning.
no wonder members are 'confused'
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I have made all these points to the Club at the highest level, which related in the 'trial' a few years back. I was not happy with the result of the trial. The statement we got after the trial just was not robust or detailed enough for the resulting abandonment of the trial.
So what has now changed? Well the name of the Club for starters! With the increasing number of motorhomes I'm sure there will be a case for revisiting this in the not too distant future. I'm biding my time!
David
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Due to lack of room, I used my mover on my twin axle while on grass the other day ...... No problems at all. Perhaps your mover needs to be a bit closer to your wheels/tyres 
