Time for reduced rate for "small" campers
Comments
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On various threads we have already heard that caravans tend to stay on site longer than MH, as vanners (according to some) don't tour.
Why would the club take larger pitches away to make smaller pitches just in case a smaller MH wanted to stay a couple of nights and turn away larger units who want to stay a week or more.
Doesn't sound like good business practice to me.
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Why not introduce a different coloured peg to designate some smaller pitches which could only be used for 3 nights maximum. This would suit "proper" tourers whether that be caravanners or motorhomers.
It would also allow the CAMC to get back to its roots of being a touring club. Seems to me to be a win win.
I'm sure others will disagree.
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A better and fairer pricing model would be to scrap the Pitch fee element completely and increase the amount "per person". A couple would therefore pay exactly the same, single occupancy vans would pay less and large groups sharing a van would pay a bit more.
K
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AFAIK, in a row of single units, with no allowance for awnings, they'd need to be 6m apart.
in a row of awning equipped caravans, the awnings would have to be 6m from the next caravan....(irrespective of where the car might go)..
so, a row of non-awning pitches would save the width of an awning on each pitch, say 3m...
thats a significant acreage saving, and in a row of 20 non awning pitches, you could save 60m...with a single unit being say 3m wide and another 6m to,the next unit, each 'pitch' takes up 9m..
so, enough for another 6 plus pitches...
of these pitches were (say) £3cheaper, than (say) £25, the row of 'converted pitches' would bring in 26 X £22 (£572) against 20 X £25 (£500) per night...or around £500 a week extra income...just on one row of 20 pitches...
if 20 pitches were (say) even as high as 20% of the total pitches in site, I would expect this to easily be taken up as a result of the £21 a week saving....the equivalent of 1 free night a week againt the 'old' price...
so, customer savings, better use of pitches, club makes more overall money....
yes, the 'saver' pitches wouldn't suit large outfits, but (say) 80% of the site could remain unchanged....so still something for everyone..
even for Easy, Oneputt, Swifty et al....
sounds like good business sense to me....wink
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You’re right, Easy. 6m between vans and 3m between cars/awnings.
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OK, lets change it to 5 days and call it the "Easy Rule"
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I sympathise to some extent with the OP however if you don’t like it there are plenty of non club sites out there although I am not aware of many who charge as you would wish. We also pay for facilities we do not use, showers, wash up, laundry, play areas, motorhome service points...... the other option is to go down the budget airline pricing route with charges for every possible extra. With the appropriate computer software algorithms it would be very easy to set up.
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Like it flatcoat.
When on a stopover at Waasmunster,Belgium we were charged 5 euro deposit for a swipe card to be used for electric, water and showers, the card was checked on leaving and usage added to bill, what a good idea, no waste and only pay for what you use.
Though I can see the OP's point, I don't argue that we caravanners are not allowed to overnight on Aires.( Though some do ) !
Happy caravanning.
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It's a good question but a motor home is classed as a motor-caravan and as such they has to follow various guidelines and possibly laws given by higher (than the club) authorities. As in this link:
I do have better copies from other fire and government agencies at home but they all say the same thing.
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Out of curiosity I have just totted up our current future bookings between now and August.. We have 10 with this club, on club sites, but another 26 with CC&C, Private & 5 van sites. Some of this was price related and some was on location, but this club is often too expensive for us, especially in the summer months.
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While I have never stayed at the Aires of Canterbury and Lytham St Anne's I would be very surprised if they had 6 meter spacing! I cannot think the Club would have any planning problems with achieving this if the councils above don't.
peedee
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One slight hiccup there BB. Local planning and councils have the final say on the total number of pitches on a site. There's no going over that number.
JK
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Surprise,surprise .....precisely the C&CC system
It's good to find that there are some differentiators between the two Clubs. The other big one of course is the over-60 discount ..... and usually the choice of not paying for EHU if you don't need it on grass pitches.
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but they are not a touring/camping /site, they are more like cars parks, and not governed by the same rules.
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I think the current system is pretty fair. Single campers only pay one lot of per person fees. The site I am on a the moment is £18 a night for the two of us. A single person would only pay £12.30 which is a lot less than most CL's with electrics and toilet facilities. Most commercial sites seem to operate on an inclusive all in per night charge with no reduction for only one person.
As to changing Club sites I suspect that ain't going to happen anytime soon. There are other ways that a more economic stay could be achieved by differential in pricing between the different types of pitches. Current pitches can be used by all comers changing sites would take away that flexibility.
David
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The site licence will note pitch numbers. The planning permission may well not. 6 additional pitches on some sites may well escape notice by planning unless there's a complaint. Even so it may not be in the public interest to take enforcement action and the issue may be resolved informally - usually by calling it "de minimus"
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I'm quite happy with the current system, (and I dont use vast amounts of electricity). ok so metering would be fairer, BUT theres the expense of the meters and maintenace (currently power is limited after all.) The meters would have to be read before you leave and then you'd need to pay the charge - bit of an unnecessary complication for small change. Just how far do you go? maybe charge for each dog or cat, extra for large ones? (thats a joke btw) If I camped in my small tent then I might be upset being charged for power, but then I'd research before and camp somewhere appropriate. A simple and reasonable system is needed and thats what we have.
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No reason the Club cannot create a car park.
Some will say they already have.Interestingly I read motorhome membership has now reach 50 percent and the average length of stay on a Club site is 4.5 days. Sites were originally built to accommodate caravans, we are only now seeing changes specific for motorhomes, the model needs to change further.
peedee
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Peedee, the 'club' is a sleepy old giant and takes some waking up...
I really don't think the club has much of a clue when it comes to understanding MH use....
i just left Cirencester and was parked, 'top right' pitch number in the 80s.
when we left, we needed to empty our grey tank, so....
off round the one way system, right down to the bottom end of the site, out throught the exit barrier, turn back into the site, in through the entry barrier, follow the one way system, back through the centre of the site to the MHSP.
emptied waste, well done CC for an easy to access open drain...
off up the site road, around the one way system, past my old pitch, back down the hill to the bottom, back up round to the exit, through the exit barrier and .......wait for it....OUT.....
why not have the MHSP just inside the exit gate so that folk leaving could use it on the way out could do so without two complete circuits of the site....or even folk just emptying and then returning to their pitch wpuldnt have to leave the site and pass through two barriers just to empty some water.....
we had the same issue at BW....parked just beyond the MHSP so had to go round the site twice, once to empty and again to get out.....
if every MH is going through this palaver to empty on the way out, it's doubling the MH exit traffic, can't be sensible, can it....
nice MHSP, just totally in the wrong place.....definitely never been road tested in a real scenario....
taking on board Peedee's point about more MHs, the club should be thinking a bit more about how to ease the traffic for exiting MHs
of course, caravanners don't perform this ritual so how would the Caravan (and Motorhome) Club understand it....?
again, 'embracing' means far more than a name change
5/10 for effort...
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Well, goodness me, what a discussion I've managed to create here. Very interesting to hear everyone's opinions. I think of all the ideas, my favourites are:
- a number of smaller, cheaper pitches for the under 6m campers
- abandon the pitch fee completely and just have a per person one
- the use of a card to use for showers, laundry, hook up electricity etc that tots up individual usage and gets paid on leaving
The above three ideas would mean smaller units pay less, lower power users pay less too. Larger units and heavy power users pay more. Seems logical and fairer to me.
Thank you all for your contributions.
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Agree with you Kilda, but don't hold your breath,you cannot book a hard standing,but you have to have leccy and before the gang say anything we are aware of some non leccy pitches😎
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Fair enough, if that's your view, Kilda, although you seem to have chosen to ignore all the evidence that single travengers actually get a pretty good deal from the club - as I mentioned, I paid just under £13 a night for 3 nights, including the weekend at Cirencester last week.
But to address your 3 points specifically -
- if you look at all the much praised newly opened commercial sites the one thing they all make a point of is "large, spacious pitches". Why would the club go against that trend?
- OK, abandon the pitch fee, but surely it would involve adding, say 50% of it on to the person person rate. Easy to implement, I suppose, but at fairly small saving to the individual. It might just work, but again it seems to go against common practice, at least here in the UK.
- issuing a card for use of electricity (presumably metered), showers etc (I don't include laundry as it has to be paid for separately anyway) will surely be prohibitively expensive to implement across the whole network, and that cost would almost certainly be passed on to customers through higher per person charges.
As has been said earlier, the club has a fairly straightforward, all inclusive pricing structure and single travellers benefit to a far greater degree than on many commercial sites with their "up to 6 people" pitch pricing. It'seems a system that seems to suit the thousands of members using sites every week of the year. If it ain't broke (and on this point, IMHO, it ain't) why try to fix it.
Just enjoy your vanning wherever the fancy takes you.
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agree to all that M
The club needs income if it removes the pitch fee they will simply add it on to the person fee to get the same result. I can't see they would just give up that income.
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A lot of expensive changes to suit a set of users like yourself who may not be the 'average' outfit staying on a club site. Most are larger units?
Also you have not mentioned a card for each dog? Swipe it when you enter the dog walk? use a poo bin?
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KIlda
It's always good to have a discussion on possible future changes to the way the Club do things. However you have to accept that the Club have to make decisions based on the majority not a relatively small number of people if observations on sites is anything to go by. Keeping things simple is often the best policy. Trying to introduce high tech solutions are bound to cost a lot of money and one would have to question the wisdom of that investment which could be better spent elsewhere? On your suggestion about small pitches. They would still need to have the regulation space around them it wouldn't really be an option to get more of such pitches on a site. I would also question how many sub six metre units you actually see on a Club site, there may be a few but nowhere near enough to warrant changing things in my view. The advantage of the present pitch system is that it is flexible whereas making smaller pitches would restrict that flexibility.
David
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