Site Pricing
Are the Club pricing themselves out of the market? Just had a look at a week staying at Haycraft in Dorset and was shocked to discover that a Serviced Pitch price has now crept over £400. Even CLs seem to have hiked prices. One that I looked at was charging £15 for a non-electric pitch - really, who is going to stay there more than a single night.
At this rate, 2026 is going to be our last as caravanners, as I cannot keep forking out when my income has not kept pace with these increases.😪
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People have been making similar comments ever since this forum started in 2012. Perhaps the fact that the club is still going nigh on 14 years later tells us something🤷🏻♂️
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Interesting that despite the cost quite a few serviced pitches at Haycroft are already booked in June so it would seem that many are willing to pay the price? There is another campsite only yards from Haycroft but I don't think they have hardstandings, let alone serviced pitches, not sure of their prices?
On your point about the price of the CL I think you have to ask yourself whether you would be prepared to open and run a CL for less? If customers agree with your comment about prices it won't succeed as a business. I think there is a danger with prices of not accepting that many costs have risen, particularly since Covid and many have not got used to them yet?
David
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Hi pegwr, I agree with your feelings. I wouldn’t pay that price for a week on a campsite. There are other sorts of holiday I could choose and without doubt I would spend more than the price you were quoted, but I would be happy with my choice.
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@pegwr33 have you thought of using any of the rallies or holiday meets it you want less expensive than £15pn non-EHU locations? We have found that there are lots all round the country at around £12pn, especially those run under the C&CC's THS banner. It's not compulsory to use club sites if you are concerned purely about cost, for example up to end of November we had been away in this country for 216 nights scan average cost of £17.01p staying in a whole variety of different kinds of sites including CLs with fully serviced pitches.
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This has been covered many, many times and I think we just have to accept prices are high. C&MC sites are expensive, but so are the majority of good independent sites. CL's do offer great value and often excellent facilities.
If you want cheap, or real value for money then you have to go abroad, and if going for three weeks it really is cost effective. I've recently booked a site in France west of Nantes, 300m from the beach with excellent facilities for Euro 21 a night, in late August.
Colin
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Colin is right about prices, but the sites we have revisited in France were not simply chosen for their prices. They were family owned sites where we were looked after. Sites where there really was some service.
Have you got food for tonight, sir, or can I cook something for you.? What bread and pastries would you like to order for the morning - I will bring them to your awning. Sites where there were drinks and conversation on the terrace by the swimming pool every evening. International football matches on a big screen tv the owners had set up - with a partisan multi national crowd. A site owner who turned out in pouring rain to find a dryish pitch for us - and shoved our moverless van into place. One site where everyone set to work and organised a communal meal for the entire site , and of course the memorable on site drinks party at Eygalieres on 14th July. I was so drunk that night.
It wasn’t price which put me off UK campsites. It was their sheer sterility. And total absence of service.2 -
I think you nailed it there eurotraveller, a perfect description of what it is like to stay on a French site.
I recall hearing a story about our favourite Loire site where the owner really did have the campers interests in hand. Early one summer they had a flood warning and the site was going to and did flood badly The owner thought on his feet and arranged with a local winery to clear the car cark and set up electric hook-ups for the caravans.
Colin
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@pegwr33 As @Tinwheeler says this sort of post has been appearing many times each year since the start of CT and if I had a pound for each time the question about the club pricing themselves out of the the market was asked I reckon I could have at least one night away by now.
If you look at the booking page for any site with service pitches you'll see that the take up is almost always far greater than for standard pitches. However a SP only add £5 per night.
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We always have a service pitch if one is available and they are nearly always fully booked. We've noticed, however, that we rarely see a site full now even in high summer. We always have two weeks at Incleboro Fields each year in August and this year there were loads of empty pitches which we haven't seen before.
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@mbee1 I think it depends on which site and what type of pitch.
Incleboro fields has 241 pitches and even when we looked at it 10 and 5 fives years ago it was never full then, however if you look at August 2026 it's full for for all but 9 days on SP and low for the rest while plenty of space on grass pitches, I've said it before but it appears that grass pitches are on their way out.
No one ever said that club sites were full all the time though I did post a few times that at BHs (Easter, May and August) the take up on 'central' and easy to get to areas was very good indeed which, from recall, two thirds+ of club sites were full over the three day of that BH.
Also on my travels this year at peak times and BH I've been on sites that have full even midweek, some very large sites of over 150 pitches. Some open all year sites like at Melrose were close to full even in winter, although that is a s small site of only 50 pitches.
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I had an email from some friends that I have not seen in some time over Christmas. They have a caravan and were asking if I still had my motorhome. A quote from their email follows:
I’m getting more disillusioned with the Caravan and Motorhome Club as it seems more focussed on money making than being a supportive club.
I draw no conclusion on the thorny issue of pitch pricing, but, whatever your opinion on this matter, there is surely no doubt that there is a growing perception that the CMC is driven more by a profit motive than by looking after its members.
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@Graydjames like you, for us site prices are now a bit academic as we no longer have a touring unit. Any profit the Club make only goes back into the Club's coffers to support redevelopment and improving things for members. I suppose as well as having a list of things members would like to see improved, some members might have a view on preferring that money was used to lower prices. I think, with the hobby moving to electric vehicles it is a major difficulty for the Club to know quite what the future holds? Perhaps they feel they need to have a buffer of reserves to face that future?
David
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@DavidKlyne Ironically, David, the friend who emailed me, and from which I quoted, tows with an electric car. I know they have an Eriba van, which I believe are more lightweight, although I know it is not one of those very little ones. I do not know which electric car they have.
I am not a fan of electric cars (we've been there before), but I foresee that ways will be found to allow people to continue the hobby in one way or another.
Anyway, of course, you are right in what you say. I was only expressing what people see as a perception. The Club is very different to when when I first joined in 1987.
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"The Club is very different to when when I first joined in 1987."
Thank goodness for that. It would be a poor show if it didn’t move with the times 👍🏻
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@Tinwheeler I think you know well what I meant; but I won't be drawn.
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You frequently tell me that but fail to explain exactly what you think I’ve missed. Have you considered that I might understand completely and then, seeing the bigger picture, I proceed to contribute another thought to the discussion? No, you probably haven’t.
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I note the edit after I posted.
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there is surely no doubt that there is a growing perception the CMC is driven more by a profit motive than by looking after its members.
I assume this is just your view rather a fact as you appear to be posting? And where is the evidence base for this growing perception? Who are these people who you claim see (this) as a perception as posted to DK?
The club has always needed to make a profit but of course there are no shareholders to give this profit to, apart from its members I suppose, and it has always made a profit and that's why it has remained in business and grown down through the years. This profit is put back into the club for new sites, refurbishments, extra pitches of the type that members appear to want, glamping pods, other services… That's how it supports and looks after its members, what other ways would you suggest?
Also I think you have drawn a conclusion on pricing simply by calling it thorny?
You've edited your posts to which makes addressing your points raised difficult.
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I joined the Club back in 1981 and, of course, there have been some massive changes in that time. Many of those changes have been evolutionary. I think it easy to forget how much easier it is now than back then. Just make booking as an example which require either a phone call or sending off by post. Now its just a few key strokes and you get immediate confirmation. All that technology costs money. I suspect much of the unhappiness is around pricing? Things have certainly gone up. In 1981 a pint of beer was about 51p now its over a fiver! OK,i'm not a big beer drinker so it has little impact on me but as far as holidays are concerned you probably have to compare with the alternatives? Whether we like it or not I suspect things won't get cheaper and if that is a issue, as with anything else, we either accept or do something different.
David
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My perception is C&mC site costs have risen more than most, perhaps due to higher central costs (marketing in particular) which many commercial owners do not have, it certainly seems easier to find cheaper satisfactory alternatives.
In February 2024 I posted about inflation in our hobby which has been much higher than the average with the C&mC site prices increases being higher than most.
peedee
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Staffing costs are expensive.
I frequently went to sites where the person in charge was only present for a couple of hours a day - that was an on trust system where people were only checked in or out once a day - with or without booking or paying in advance.That is giving way now to more automated systems - the Camping Car Parks chain now has 800 sites and is gradually spreading from its base in France to other countries. It works with apps, automated entry and exit barriers, computerised payments, and so . And staff just come in as briefly as needed for ground maintenance and cleaning.
Club members are very used and very attached to having resident wardens (plural) on site day and night. That costs. So site prices are high.1 -
"Also I think you have drawn a conclusion on pricing simply by calling it thorny?"
I said I wasn't going to be drawn into this silly argument, but I cannot let that comment go.
I said thorny because it is a constant topic of threads on this site. Some think them fair, some think them expensive. That makes them thorny. I am a Chartered Accountant. I understand the ways and means of profit and reserves and investments - probably, but I do not know, better than you do. I'm not sure I have ever reached a firm conclusion that prices are too high. They are high, but so is everything else, and that is why I sold my motorhome - very reluctantly - because I felt I could no longer afford it after going into semi-retirement.
I object to being told what I think due to miss-interpretation of the word thorny. It means it is a difficult issue.
I stand by my comment that there is a perception (and I stressed the word perception) that the club is about money making rather than looking after its members. There's enough threads in this place providing plenty of evidence of that. A perception does not mean it is a fact.
Also what's the problem with editing. I did it because my initial reaction was unfair and I wanted to make it fairer.
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”I object to being told what I think…”
Much as I object to being told by you more than once that I’ve missed the point as it implies stupidity on my part. Yes, you edited but not before I had quoted and replied to your original comment. An apology for the misguided post would have been appropriate.
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@Graydjames I am telling you nothing of the sort so I can't see why you are objecting, have I touched a nerve? If so then I'm sorry?
I'm merely reacting to what you posted and nothing more. If you meant difficult then choose your words wisely to make it plain in the first place. Thorny is, in my view, far above difficult and I would not have used it. And again you appear to be using posts on CT to represent the whole membership? How can you do that?
In fact it is neither thorny or difficult in my view it is probably the most simple decision anyone has to make, this is the price of a site, do I want to pay it?
But again as I posted earlier with two thirds of its sites full over three BH, with the club financial statement published in December 2025 looking very healthy indeed, isn't the club looking after its members and giving them what they want?
And really is it up to you to say which arguments are silly are what are not? Which post are silly are which are not? I never do so I just reply as I see fit.
The problem with editing in the way you did is that it makes responding to the one point you made that then disappears impossible.
Anyway all clear now I hope
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Indeed David
Happy New Year to all
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