Grass pitches cost
We usually like a hardstanding pitch but recently we had to take a grass pitch as a standard pitch with awning. There was only one pitch left when we arrived which was fine but when paying £30 a night for a pitch, a grass pitch itself seems less of the standard expected and especially when there is no room for an awning because your van only fits on the pitch horizontally, I wonder shd a grass pitch be a lesser charge than a spacious hard standing pitch??
Comments
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I don't think a pitch having a hardstanding surface is any guarantee of it being any more spacious than a grass pitch. Personally I also prefer hardstanding but many of the grass pitches, in my opinion, have a larger area than hardstandings.
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I would be happy for grass pitches to be £1 cheaper than hardstandings as they do in the C&CC. But hold on a minute that means you would be able to book a hardstanding which the Club and its members finds confusing!!!
David
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My preference is for a grass pitch so i would be more than happy for them to be cheaper than hard standings, though i expect grass would then become more popular so for me keep costs the same.
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i expect grass would then become more popular
I doubt that. Most booking ahead would choose hard stand I suspect. When arriving at site they may be tempted to change to the grass in a hot dry spell. Not after several days of rain perhaps.
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I too would be happy for grass to be cheaper as on the rare occasions we use club sites that would be our preference but our choice of pitch is solely based on the view.
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Grass pitches are a virtually unsaleable commodity (the real reason the book a hardstanding trial was aborted) therefore they should be given away free, perhaps just charging the per person element of the nightly charge to anyone prepared to accept one.......
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We prefer a grass pitch, but what I don't like is when the pitch is no longer grass but bare earth due to ground sheet damage! We have had to take a damaged pitch with little or no grass, and in that case I would like them to be cheaper.
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oh go on, youve twisted my arm, ill have a free one
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Don't forget to factor in which direction a particular pitch faces.
If the sun is in the wrong direction it can ruin some peoples holiday
Then there are trees with big leaves which form bigger drops of water and make a much louder noise on caravan roofs after a shower!
Well it all needs thinking about
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Interesting thought Tintent. I had often wondered how people could be confused about what pitch they had booked. Your suggestion does seem plausible despite, seemingly, a lot of people that post here saying they prefer grass pitches. I suspect that view changes once they get on site and then perhaps change their minds depending on pitch condition and the weather. Being able to book a grass pitch at a lower price might not always be an advantage but I think its worth a try.
David
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Being able to book a grass pitch at a lower price might not always be an advantage but I think its worth a try.
Gets my vote David. I think they should charge more for the maintenance aspect but if can get the damned grass used up so much the better.
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I do think that CC hard standing are unattractive, I find that on a lot of sites I visit the gravel is smaller and grass and weeds try to take over but over time and with use these pitches seem more attractive than the car park look.
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A win, win all round?
David
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i think we have to look at this from the product and customer perspective (irrespective of maintenance costs).....
although there are a small band of grass pitch afficionados (i love grass in nice weather) its fairly clear that most on here see grass pitches as an inferior product, and of variable quality.
to this end, the club should really be thinking about a price differential, especially when these same folk see HS as a superior product.
dropping the grass price by £1 (or more) and increasing the HS price by £1 should provide the perceived difference in the two products.
the tricky bit (due to us customers being easily 'confused') is how the system gets set up to allow customers to choose their pitch type at booking time.
it seems mad that service pitches and awning pitches can be selected at this time but not the surface type, which is equally important to many customers.
yes, the club suggested that the 'left over' grass pitches would go unsold as customers chose other sites over those with only grass pitches left.
however, should there be a reasonable differential in price, the uptake might well be different.
also, the issue still stands that those who cant confirm a HS pitch when booking (even to the extent of buying a SP when they dont really need one) will, in many cases, go elsewhere anyway.....so the lack of confirmed choice at booking cuts both ways....each resulting in loss of bookings.
time for a change to enable customers to choose the pitch type when they book?......
yes, there would still the first come first served element of driving round and round to choose the actual pitch from that particular type, but at least you'd know that you would get what you chose.
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I think a price difference, so you are making a clear choice of pitch, would concentrate the mind so there shouldn't be any confusion as there was with the aborted experiment of booking hardstanding pitches. As the Club has already tried an experiment in booking hardstandings the software must be in place it should not be a difficult thing to achieve. As pitch prices are reviewed every year it would be easy enough to put the change in place at the start of the new season. Perhaps the difference in price, as BB suggests, needs to be more meaningful than just £1 and maybe £2 would be a large enough incentive for people to use grass pitches. As to possible lost revenue it seems to me that on those sites with a lot of hardstandings the grass pitches are taken out of use for the early and late season so there is nothing to lose in those circumstances?
David
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I am not sure that even a price differential will solve the problem. It would be great for me, because as long as I can get a booking for hardstanding, I would be happy. However, if I preferred grass but was booking 6 months or so ahead, I might well book the dearer HS and then opt to change for cheaper grass on arrival, if available. This would then cover for poor weather and the possibility of being bumped due to pitches being taken out of service. I am not sure a £2 / £4 differential would be sufficient, if the option is still there to change types on arrival. In all probability the hardstandings would sell out early and the CC would be left with a lot of the grass until the last minute, when the weather was better known.
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BB- an excellent and spot on assesment.......
Steve - the CC may have to endure some pain in the short term but it may encourage it to focus on accelerating the pace of provision of H/S's. It's not rocket science to dig out 6" of turf and replace it with gravel, me my lad did our front garden in a weekend with only hand tools!
And yes I do realise that some predominantly grass sites (like New England Bay) are well drained and could remain as predominantly grass......
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As to possible lost revenue it seems to me that on those sites with a lot of hardstandings the grass pitches are taken out of use for the early and late season so there is nothing to lose in those circumstances?
The possible loss David is the the one borne by those who booked grass when the grass pitches are taken out of service perhaps? Maybe not as straight forward as we may at first think.
However, if I preferred grass but was booking 6 months or so ahead, I might well book the dearer HS and then opt to change for cheaper grass on arrival, if available. This would then cover for poor weather and the possibility of being bumped due to pitches being taken out of service. I am not sure a £2 / £4 differential would be sufficient, if the option is still there to change types on arrival. In all probability the hardstandings would sell out early and the CC would be left with a lot of the grass until the last minute, when the weather was better known.
And a more likely reason for the CC not to pursue the booking of hard stand rather than the baloney about confusion. Personally I could not see the CC permitting booking of hard standing. I, for one, would not book on a mixed site if all hard stands were taken. I doubt that I am alone. It is a situation that I suspect the CC does not wish to address.
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ET, - agree with everything you say.......
but in relation to.....
Personally I could not see the CC permitting booking of hard standing.
I think they will have to at some point, the C & CC allow this and every commercial site I have ever booked I have the option to specify this. If the club wishes to be a leading player in campsite provision it will have to adapt, and the change is now long overdue....
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I would gladly pay an extra £1 for a hardstanding but as with all sites, you take whats available and have done with it.
