What a pity!
Yes, what a pity the Clubs cannot get their heads round providing sites like this. Good spacing, EHU, camera surveillance of site, motorhome service point, credit card entry and controlled exit, temporary if you just wanted to go out for the day or permanant travelling onwards. Price £10.60 per night but extra £1.70 to use the services which were outside the barrier so that passing trade could also use it.
I would like to think it is the future of motorhoming in the UK, but I don't think it will be in my time.
peedee
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Oh, PD, why rake it all up again? You know the reasons as well as I do and that site isn’t even in the UK. You’d be better pursuing your dream outside of the clubs, tbh.
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Hi Peedee, Don’t pass the buck to the Club.
The Aires you go to in Europe are either financed and set up by local communes, or by commercial companies, or by campsite operators as extensions to their businesses..
Clubs have no involvement there . So why expect it here?
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@peedee Well apart from it being outside of the UK, it's not a fact or some universal truth that it's a pity at all, only your view that it is.
Personally to me to look looks like a scrubland next to a perhaps smelly canal without a hardstanding, and I would not stay on a site where the services which were outside the barrier so that passing trade could also use it.
Is that really a good thing?
All that is of my view of course, if you're happy staying there it's a win.
Also of course there are many sites in the UK where all of the aspects you list are already there:
Good spacing, EHU, camera surveillance of site, motorhome service point, credit card entry and controlled exit
These do not exist in the UK? In fact there are club sites that have most of those? By the way is the EHU metered?
But I'm not at all sure why you target just the clubs? Is it their job to do so? Surely you mean it's a pity that other agencies like other providers and councils outside of the clubs cannot get their heads round providing sites like this? I wonder why that is? One would think that is there is such a demand in the UK (at that price) someone would be falling over themselves to provide such a site - actually is that cheaper than any CL?
But of course comparing prices abroad with the UK as often been discussed is just pointless.
Enjoy your stay.
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@Hja But why the club? Which is a voluntarily paid for member's club.
Why not other providers, as I've often said for many years why isn't someone building sites like these? why are councils doing it? Independents? Surely if the market is there it's a nice little earner?
Indeed more MHs are using club sites but they appear happy to pay for and want full facilities, look at MHs on SPs, and I suppose that's why the clubs continues to offer more and more of 'full fat sites' which attract them and close down the basic sites that no one, or not enough to pay their way, in the clubs want to use?
As I've said, if the demand is really there why aren't more providers opening sites like this?
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I googled that aire to find out a bit more.
It looks to me as though the local tax payers in that village coughed up a lot of money to install the camera surveillance, EHU, computerised entry and exit , water, drainage , refuse collection, and all that - just for the benefit of handful of visitors with expensive motorhomes - and provide them somewhere to stay at uncommercial prices.
I think the local tax payers there were stupid to pay for it. We wouldn’t.
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It looks a nice little Aire, what is it about 6/8 units? Is the club the right vehicle for this? If you are thinking that the Club could convert parts of existing sites to create an aire that would I assume be possible subject to planning. However what has gone unsaid is the nightly charge and no doubt there would be an expectation that it would be considerably lower than what the Club currently charge for a normal pitch. I think it would be difficult to convince non motorhome owners that they should pay, perhaps, double the site fee just to have a bit more room? The Club actually have two sites that one might argue are similar to motorhome aires, Baltic Wharf and Steamer Quay but they are priced at the higher end of normal site fees. I suspect you would have to convince the Club that providing such facilities would be to their advantage rather than the advantage of motorhomers? Who knows what will happen in the future regarding the caravan/motorhome ownership mix. On recent evidence the Club seem to be moving away from the more basic provision as we have seen with a lot of the recent site closures.
David
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The service is very similar to what the club provides in the description, but the cost is way below the economic rate for any operator. I cannot see any public body subsidising motorhomes to the extent needed there and the clubs could not do anywhere near that price, even if they were going to be so selective with the members allowed to use it. I think this has to be a one off and great value if you can use it.
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Kircudbright Aire. Drive over waste, H/S, hook up, easy access, swimming pool next door, 10 minutes stroll into town.
Three pitches, it was a lovely quiet location, good dog walking. There’s more free pitches, on grass a couple of hundred metres away, no hook up.
Community run, the proceeds help run the very nice pool next door.
We were very impressed. No restrictions on sitting out. Max two night stop over. Or was it three?🤔
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And no need for any club involvement 👍🏻
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No, it was a lovely place. Scotland seems a lot better at this sort of thing than most other UK places. We wouldn’t do the big Aires, too cramped and busy for us. Forest Scotland do some nice places as well. There’s a good stopover at Clatteringshaws Reservoir, has CDP point, and water.
Club do Club and cater well for Members, different requirements/mindset is also good and why we like to mix things up.😁
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@JimE which club sites do you have to pay in advance?
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Isn’t that pay on arrival at club sites? Many commercial sites insist on payment in advance, some be several weeks, but not club sites.
Those are all reasons for keeping the aire type sites under the control of different operators rather than the clubs.
I’ve said many a time that this type of site is outside of the remit of the clubs and best left to others.
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Actually, if you want to ensure you get pitch at K, you need to get there mid afternoon, there’s only three hook up spaces. However, there’s plenty of no hook up 200 metres away.
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Why do motor homers always want someone else to provide for them?
I never heard of a motorhomer buying CL, getting planning permission to expand, then refusing to let caravans in , and running it as a motorhome aire in the way they describe and dream of.
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@JimE in one post you say
'And no need to arrive at a specific time, pay in full in advance...'
And now you post:
'All club sites that I have used - with most of the aires I have used you pay when you decide to leave'
In over 25 years of using club sites I have never paid in advance, nor have I paid when I leave, are you talking about this club - the CAMC?
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But @JimE you posted:
'All club sites I have used - with most of the aires I have used you pay when you decide to leave'
Also paying before pitching means on arrival, not in advance as you posted?
I'm just confused 😕
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So paying before pitching you class as in advance? Try getting into a room at a Premier Inn before paying at reception and telling them how long you’re going to stay🤣🤣. Come on, Jim, you know how things work.
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I don’t much care how aires operate, tbh, as they are completely unrelated to the clubs' sites. Again two separate entities which are being discussed as if they are, or should be, the same. It’s comparing apples with oranges as your old mate used to say.
You say you are aware of how club sites operate yet seemed to think you need to pay in advance as opposed to on arrival. A bit of confusion there, methinks. Oh well, onwards and upwards…..
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The Aires we have used have varied significantly in how they charge. Some free. Others pay on entry with a credit card for one night and get a receipt with a number, which can be used either to exit the site within 24 hours or pay for another night. Or pay and display a ticket, usually in Aires that are part of car parks. However, those we use most (Camping car park) you pay on leaving, although it’s actually later than that as they wait to see if you come back within your 24 hours, or enter another site. But as you have to deposit enough money with them to pay for a minimum stay of 5 hours, (otherwise it won’t let you in ) you are paying in advance. In practice of course we tend to top up 50€ at a time, so we definitely pay in advance.
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