Use of services without a stay?
Hi Folks,
does anyone know if Club sites or CLs allow the use of their services without a stay. I know "the other club" offers its members 3 hours use of services / showers / CDP for a small fee (£5.75?).
Thanks
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CAMC categorically does not allow this and we have had an official response on this forum explaining they feel it would promote wildcamping.
What CLs do is entirely up to them as far as I am aware,
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Folks will wildcamp regardless of what CC HQ thinks, that is just the way some folks are. The sites are just not set up for receiving none staying users, and lets be honest, at fees close to and in excess of £30 per night, do those staying want to see more traffic in and around sites and facilities? I suspect not. There are security issues as well, as anyone who has stayed during a site invasion by Travellers can testify. One arrives, word goes out (so easily nowadays) and bingo, swarms arrive. Trust me, having been in the middle of such an experience, it is not one I would care to repeat. I have never seen a Site empty so quickly of members before.
If, when, the requirement for call in facilities reaches the extent it does overseas, then the Club is best placed to advise local authorities who are interested in providing municipal facilities, but keep the two separate is my opinion.
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I wonder if their fear of promoting wildcamping is based on environmental high ground issues or simply loss of revenue
who know, but does it matter? Both are equally acceptable? the club has to make a profit or no club?
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We are C&CC members and we were at a rally at a rugby club adjacent to a C&CC site. As we had been away for over two weeks, I had a pile of laundry to do. We went into the site, (to buy gas) and I asked the holiday site manager if I could use the Laundry. We told her we were at the rally next door. She said I am not supposed to let you, but ok, as we are quiet at the moment, you can but not the toilet and showers. So I don't know where the OP got the 3 hr use from.
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I agree, it doesn't matter. I just have a dislike of organisations 'making use' of environmentally friendly postures when they simply want to save costs/increase revenue. I'd much rather they just said that it may have an adverse affect on their income. I'd respect that.
A perfect example of this is where hotels suggest you reuse towels to save the environment when the main (legitimate) motive is to save costs. But at the same time they perpetuate other processes where change could help the environment but at cost to them.
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So I don't know where the OP got the 3 hr use from.
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ah, flexibility, discretion and common sense....all in one warden
which club was that?.....ah, the 'friendly' one?
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perhaps the club could make 'more profit' if it 'sold' the use of services to passing Members....yes, members only.
folk will 'wild camp' if they want to, irrespective of the clubs 'noble
' stance on this subject.....however, if they offered a 'services' service to members who wild camp, perhaps the instances of those 'features' of wild camping that we all abhor might be reduced?
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NO! They charge a small fee, maybe 5 euros, BB will be able to give details.
Why not?
MHs are able to wild camp or use Aires, caravans less so, but we have stopped on motorway aires without problems. Sometimes you just cannot get to a site at a reasonable time.
Ferries do not always run at convenient times.
Why are people so hostile?
Where I come from, the north of Norway, we have the right to stop/camp anywhere, as long as it does not inconvenience landowners or others. Quite simillar to the rules in Scotland and Sweden.
We, as caravanners have used this right a couple of times, it is not a problem as long as you observe the "rules".......leave nothing behind.
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Kjell and WTG, good responses.....
Kev, as above NO, but very many of them either have a seperate aire attached/adjacent to the site which will have its own (much cheaper tarrif) or that the facilities inside the site (generally at the entrance/exit) will be available for a small fee, usually €2/3.
the suggestion made in this, and earlier threads, was never expecting services to be provided free, merely to have Club membership as the entrance criterion and then pay for 'services' (fresh/waste water and CDP).
despite CCC offering the use of showers, for their (steep) fee of £7+, i didnt think anyone on the CT threads had been requesting showers as part of this 'process'.....other than the chap whose van had broken and wanted a shower at a nearby site...
there seemed to be a heavy chunk of cynicism in your post, Kev, but perhaps you don't realise that other places dont exist as such a closed shop as CC and are happy to 'sell' (cheaply) the use of their facilities to those who wish to purchase them.
the site down the road, nearest the beach, has a 30+ van aire as part of its 'complex'....customers in the aire pay around €8 a night whereas those on a proper 'emplacement' pay around €15.
both groups can use the showers, toilets, pools, bar, restaurant, shop etc, etc....
both groups are treated equally, without one being seen as some sort of cheapskate, sponging, freeloading blight on society, which is how some see those who dont use campsites all the time.
those on the aire arent cheapskates, their paying the going rate for the services they want to use.
its just a different mentality which has spawned a different way of doing things.
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I'm sure BB will be along soon, but in the meantime, the answer is that quite often there are "bornes" or terminals - sanistations- installed at the entrance, or just outside, campsites. There are different types, such as Flot Bleu or Euro Relais to name a couple.
They operate on the insertion of coins, costs vary, and typically you can pay between 2-4 Euros for about 100 litres of fresh water or 60 minutes of mains electricity. There are also facilities for dumping grey and black water. We've also stayed on some sites where there are no "bornes", but people can use the facilities by calling onto reception and paying a similar amount, for example one site we were on charged 3 Euros for that.
So no, not free, but available for a nominal sum.
Edited: BB, I see we posted at the same time! Enjoy your trip, we'll be "over there" in a few days too!
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thanks, Ina
......i was still stuggling with my 'tasse de thé' and my ipad, lol
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We called at Poolsbrook last week to check the site out as we are due their shortly, while we were their the wife needed the loo the warden kindly let us a key, l agree with an earlier post it could encourage those that wild camp to abuse the system
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so, hang on.....letting your wife use the loo (without staying on site) is fine......(fine with me, too..BTW..) yet someone wanting to empty their loo (and paying for it) isnt?
perhaps you were going to wildcamp....? did the warden ask you this before 'promoting it' by letting you ise the site services.....and for free
ok, the above is tongue in cheek but it just shows how daft it is that one person can use the toilet but another (willing to pay) cant...
perhaps all the wildcampers should just pull up on a site and pretend theyre checking it out for a future booking.....?
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We will be enjoying the cheep or free airs as we travel through France and Spain in January, and will be spending as we go, it's great but we neither have that kind of setup in the uk or the camc, the Motorhome fill points on a lot of the camc sites would not facilitate a couple of off roaders queuing to get water and dump their waste as it would block the site. A lot of the camc sites when full in the summer months would also struggle with the extra people coming in just to use the facilities as well.
Unfortunately we are not set up in the U.K. To do what a lot of Europe does with regards to Motorhomes, probably because it's still a relatively new way of camping for us over hear. I don't mean we never had any motorhomes a few years ago, but when we started caravanning if the site took 100 outfits you barely saw 3/4 motorhomes. Now that is probably maybe 15/20. This change has happened quite quickly as We've only been been caravanning for 19 years.
I don't think things will change in the uk because as it was elequently put earlier nobody thinks anybody should be freeloading of getting something cheaper than them.
Look at car parking charges, very very few places in the U.K. Let you park for free turn that on its head in Europe and most towns or villages you would be hard pushed to find a carpark which charges you.
January will be the first trip freeloading in the campervan and am looking forward to it, not because of the money saved but the freedom it offers.
my post was rather cynical but as said we don't do that in the uk and it will imo be a very long time until we do.
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We regularly stay on a no facility CL near Hythe in Kent. Last time we were there I got talking to one of the other vanners and he freely admitted that each morning he and his wife cycled down to Daleacres CC site (about 1 mile away) to use the showers and toilets, as a member he considered himself entitled to do so.
IMO if you want to use a sites facilities you should stay on it although I can see no problem in the club allowing motorhoming members to use the dump and water for a small fee.
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In a nutshell No & No again , you get to use all the facilities on aCMC site or CL when you've actually paid to stay on that site that's how it is & that's how it should stay.
No way should the Club encourage the use of any of their site facilities to freeloaders & wild campers , because that's what all these stupid posts are about .
If that's unacceptable move on , the Club is a voluntary membership you don't have to join go elsewhere.
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There's friendly !
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The facts.........😜
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If a CMC Motorhome member pays a fee of £5.00 to top up with drinking water and to empty grey and black waste on any CMC site. It is added income for the CMC with no additional expense.
This is supposed to be a club and as such. should cater for the needs of all it's members, not just the diehard traditional caravan owners.
The CMC is an ever evolving organisation and as the leisure industry moves forward into the 21st century where caravans will gradually die out and smaller motorhomes will be the norm, catering for the needs of this ever expanding section will become necessary for the CMC to survive.
K
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Read all the posts , there's been a response from the club it's not going to happen. 😇
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+1😜
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They new we weren't wild camping they had checked up on the web to see we had booked for 3 weeks time, we were passing and decided to take a look. we even told the warden it didn't matter as we could use the cafe on poolsbrook but as l said he kindly let us use the sites toilet block. l stated that l agreed with the earlier post that it could cause a problem. The first thing we did was to go to reception and told them what we were their for, to look around the site as we had not been their before.
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