Non electric pitches not on site plans
Hello, I'm hopeful of getting away soon and was looking at a few sites in the west midlands area for a two or three days stop over.
Whilst looking at the Chapel Lane and also the Malvern Hills sites, I noticed that they were both offering non electric pitches, which I have never noticed before. Looking at the site plans there no mention of these pitches and there is no mention of them in the websites offers page.
The way it looks is that some normal grass with electric pitches have been set aside for non electric use?
Malvern is giving a £4.80 discount whilst Chapel Lane is £4.60, on the grass with electric price.
In the summer I am quite happy to not have electric, so these pitches would appeal to me. I haven't seen any mention of this on the website or any CT discussions. Are there any other club sites doing the same or are these the only ones ?
Mike
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I've seen these before but they are usually tucked away, miles from the office and in the dingiest part of a site...
we were at Black Knowl last year and I decided to seek it (there is only one there) out....not a good pitch, right under a tree...
Later, I've tried to make a booking on it and it always comes up out of use..🤷🏻♂️
the Club is trialling a metering system at a couple of sites and, should this prove successful (no what the criteria to define 'successful' are.....) and rolled out network wide, members will be able to go 'non EHU' on any pitch...
like you, we don't need electric and until now, options have been few...
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I've seen these before but they are usually tucked away, miles from the office and in the dingiest part of a site...
Whereas at New England Bay, say, the non electric pitches are the best location, on the front row ( best location judging by how most people seem to want a front row spot here). They are also marked on the site plan, but confusingly the tent pitches at the rear of the site are also shown in brown.
The club needs to borrow my boss for a week or two, she loves a good colour coded map or spreadsheet, she would soon have this all sorted out.......
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For anyone coming south west instead Harford Bridge Touring Park on the edge of Tavistock has 33 grass pitches right on the bank of the river Tavy - a lovely spot, though salmon cruising by are rarer than in days gone by.
Half of those riverside pitches have electric hookups and half don’t - and there’s a price difference of £4.50 at most times of year. They are well marked on a good site map.
Love Tavistock too.
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Chapel Lane doesn't appear to have non electric, there are no green tick boxes by that type of pitch.
Steamer Quay used to be all non ehu. Altnaharra has several non ehu. They are around if they are marked on the details page with a green tick box.
Lots of CLs offer non ehu at very competitive prices.
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Here`s the current list of sites offering non electric pitches
https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/uk-holidays/useful-information/types-of-pitch/non-electric-economy-pitch-discounts/2 -
Have made that link live MM, useful to see.
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"...we were at Black Knowl last year and I decided to seek it (there is only one there) out....not a good pitch, right under a tree..."
and there it is.....pitch 132.....with just one pitch of this type, will availability always be LOW?
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This is what I wondered about. I've used non electric pitches on CMC sites previously and know they can be iffy.
I've never seen them available on these two sites but then you can go to the booking page and see them as an option.
Knowing that the website in general is rubbish, if this is an error, it's a pretty big one.
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I've seen these before but they are usually tucked away, miles from the office and in the dingiest part of a site...
we were at Black Knowl last year and I decided to seek it (there is only one there) out....not a good pitch, right under a tree...
That`s because if they were in a prime area of sites they would be normal pitch prices also these pitches will have been identified as usable space but not prime positions possibly not within an EHU either
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Just to add to the non-electric pitch 'scenario'....
the club magazine today has a double page splurge of the 'you asked, we did' type. One of the sections mentions pitch type selection...."where you can choose between grass, hardstanding and other options"...
all fine, except the example printed in the magazine shows a grass non-electric option at a base price of £16.80 whereas the cheapest grass with awning and EHU option is £21.90 a difference of £5.10 'for electric' per night.
This is nothing like the pitch reduction folk are being offered at the two trial sites for metered EHU.
yes, there may be larger amounts over the winter but not a good example to show at the time of year where the reduction is far, far less than this.
oh, the article is titled 'Booking Made Simple'🤷🏻♂️
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Thanks for highlighting this from the magazine. This is what I have seen on the booking pages for the sites I mentioned in the OP.
Even though those sites don't seem to have non electric pitches according to the available information.
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I've been through the earlier supplied link of non electric pitches before and many of the sites have between 1 and 4 such pitches....a couple of sites have a few more but it's certainly not a straightforward easy option to take up, especially with the location of some of the pitches👎👎
I guess if we ever get past the trial and there is a network wide roll out of the outcome (🤷🏻♂️ whatever that might be) we may be able to take up a non EHU option by recording nil on the meter.
...but how much simpler (and hugely less expensive) would it have been for me (one) to just not plug into the bollard and get a proper discount?
this seems like huge investment to crack a small nut, however I'm sure it's more for sharing out the electric usage fairly among those that use it (meters) rather than offering a simple 'non EHU' option across the estate...which would have been nice👍
on page 75 of the mag there is an article about car hire and the chap is near Dorchester at the Crossways site. Top of page 76 is a panel telling us not to forget that some sites have non electric pitches, including Crossways.
yes, Crossways is on the list but, yet again, the dots aren't joined, while the site overview shows this option, the site plan shows no such pitches.🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
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Perhaps the club has been gradually physically removing these pitches but their documentation has been left behind?
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this seems like huge investment to crack a small nut, however I'm sure it's more for sharing out the electric usage fairly among those that use it (meters) rather than offering a simple 'non EHU' option across the estate...which would have been nice
It should also give the Club better financial control. It should not have to guess what it's electricity bill will be. A win for both the Club and members.
peedee
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I'm sure the club would know what their bills will be, after all it will go through a meter which the leccy company read to produce a bill🤷🏻♂️...just like at home.
what metering will do is enable the club to charge that overall cost back proportionally to those that used it..rather than add a 'basic charge' to everyone's bill.
the other benefit is that members will be able to keep a handle on their usage and avoid any surprises come payment time....although it's paid for in advance👎
I've got no problem with metering, we're cheap to run, but it seems a complicated system to me compared to what we use elsewhere. Still, it is what it is....I wonder what will define 'success' in the trial?
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I'm sure the club would know what their bills will be
Currently the Club sets its pitch prices in advance of electricity consumption. They have to guess at what usage will be. OK it is an educated guess probably based on historic data but nevertheless its a guess. They have been caught out before and made losses due to price rises and increases in consumption. There is less chance of that happening with members paying for what they use.
peedee
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Just comparing a CL price with Malvern site, looking for non electric. It seems it would allow me to book such a pitch, but obviously not on the list and no such non electric pitches on the site plan. Certainly wouldnt want to book such a pitch without knowing where abouts on the site it was.
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