Fully Serviced pitches
It is really disappointing that the caravan club have a habit of ignoring members.
I and many others only want fully serviced pitches. It would be extremely easy to filter sites by fully serviced pitches, filtering is available for nearly every other option!
I am going to Winchester caravans to have my caravan serviced so thought I would have a look for a local site for a few days.
It would appear there are no club sites anywhere near Winchester with fully serviced pitches, so I phoned up the Club and a helpful lady confirmed there were no sites near with fully serviced pitches even without having to search!
Then the penny dropped, the club does not want to show how far they are behind the commercial sites so choose to ignore requests from members.
It would be great if the club could respond, but I doubt if that will happen!
It would be great if any members know of a site near to Winchester with fully serviced pitches.
Thanks for reading
Derek
Comments
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Im not sure your supposition about the club is correct, DS, but there is a sticky thread in this UK section listing all the sites with serviced pitches.
There us also a similar sticky of CLs with serviced pitches. Look gor Metheven's post with the interactive map.
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Derek
Where they can the Club does provide and ever increasing number of serviced pitches as they realise there is a demand from members. Unfortunately I think on sites like Morn Hill there are difficulties with leases that discourage long term investment. From my memory of that site the toilet block adjacent to the Reception is in desperate need of refurbishment. This will also apply to other sites. How about the New Forest, both sites there have service pitches and not that far from Winchester?
David
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agreed, don't need one, don't want one, makes pitches even more expensive....
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Then the penny dropped, the club does not want to show how far they are behind the commercial sites so choose to ignore requests from members.
I don't think the conspiracy therory holds water and I don't think they are particularly far behind the average commercial. However, even if they are behind, they are actively playing catch up, with service pitches being installed or increased at refurbished sites.
I do agree with you on the point that it is ridiculous not to provide a filter. Especially as there are ones for WiFi and swimming pools. I suspect it is like much IT on here, it's "on the list". After all avatars have only been on the blink for almost a year 😂 and the general search function has never worked.
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Fortunately there seem to be plenty, including us, who do want one. Hence the reason the CC is responding by increasing the number. Yes, they are more expensive but folk are willing to pay that.
When you look around a site that has them, percentage take up is at least as great as the standard pitches midweek and is often 100% at weekends, although standard pitches are still available.
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I don’t require one either but I can see their advantage and wouldn’t decry them as plenty of people do seem to want them.
Similarly, I’m not a fan of grass pitches but accept others are.
There’s a demand for all types of pitch and, as long as the serviced pitches are being used, the club is clearly filling a need - something it’s often criticised for not doing.
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Same for us Justus. On a facility site we normally stay for 5 days and we will use site showers rather than clean our own as we have effectively paid to use them. In such circumstances I will fill thr aquaroll once at the start of the stay. It would therefore cost us £20 to fill up with 40 litres of tap water. Personally I do think the level of charge is far too high. I also think that there should be provision of a standpipe between pitches on most sites included in standard fee.
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We don't use service pitches either, the extra charged on club sites makes the fees even more expensive. We only tend to use club sites in the winter, and if it's cold the taps sometimes freeze anyway
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like many CC 'topics' this is a subject that polarises opinion....some folk love em, some can't see a use for them....
yet the club has pressed on relentlessly, despite SP being of no interest to a large proportion of the membership.
a recent thread mentioned the club looking at a few smaller, cheaper 'stop over' pitches spread throughout the network, which might satisfy the more itinerant MH members, especially as the club 'recognised' (apparently....) the rising proportion of MH members that might use them.
however. there was outcry on this forum as this was seen as 'favouring' one area of the membership...
cant see a lot of difference here with SPs, except that the Caravan Club is satisfying a need more biased towards caravan owners...
the shoe is definitely on the other foot....
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add me to that list, it was quite a shock to have a standard pitch last week! yes the club does know they are very popular and responding to that as shown by new sites having them from the start and often have them installed on established sites during re-furbishmnets.
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But then why are motor homes using SP? The wardens at the edinbugh site they were very popluar with MH, and this was true, on our row of 10 SP, 6 outfits were MH.
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I know that shock of returning to a non serviced pitch. We spent two weeks in NI on sites where all pitches were serviced then returned to go to a festival where the nearest water was a field away through thousands of tents.
I like them but only book them to guarantee HS.
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yes, with us it was a case of 'why is there no water - oh ^&%$'
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I think folk were more against the club providing pitches that could only be used by half the membership. What ever ones veiw on service pitches, they can be used by MH owners and caravaners alike. When we use service pitches, there always seems to be a fair number of MH's on them, even when the site is only half full.
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I have found only one site on the Caravan Club network - and that is an affiliated site - that is fully serviced. All the others have no provision for emptying the chemical toilet at each pitch.
So let's not kid ourselves - a tap and a drain is only a small change. I wonder when we will see the introduction (at a charge, of course) of canopies over pitches to protect caravans from the weather?
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+1 and indeed expecting that everyone should subsidize these cheaper stop overs. At least SP are more expensive and can be left alone?
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It think that members drop the idea that fully serviced pitches exist, they do not, not until a motorcaravan can drop its load direct in to the main sewer, a tap and drain is just that a tap and drain and does not constitute a serviced pitch, and to charge for it is a joke.
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I think of it as the seven ages of touring man:
1. Small tent
2. Larger tent or small camper
3. Big tent or trailer tent
4. Small caravan or MH
5. Larger caravan or MH
6. Fixed Bed, huge touring outfit that seldom moves off pitch
7. Service Pitch, huge outfit never moves off pitch.
Options after that are a coach tour, or a cruise. Comes to us all. Although a happy few manage to buck the trend and keep on rolling!
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yet, at hillhead, the rows there only contained about 4 MH will the rest caravans.....I'm guessing 20-25....
so my snapshot is completely different to yours...
perhaps some MHers who've come from caravanning don't realise they don't have to bother filling an aquaroll everyday and feel the SP is a requirement for that....
a full MH tank will last many, many days if the customers are using site showers....constant topping up isn't necessary.
again, perhaps it's the Aquaroll thing, they use one (unnecessarily) see it's getting a bit low and then feel it needs filling.....ergo SP?
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yes, agreed all members 'can' use SP, but for whatever reason (cost, not required) there are plenty of posts in this thread reflecting the fact that they 'wont' use them....
so, the club are ploughing on with SP provision, effectively increasing the average price of the pitches on offer, for a percentage of the membership...
i don't see the difference.
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+ 2
youve hit the nail on the head there, Steve.
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Because all members can use serviced pitches if they want to, BB (we don't! )
The last time I stayed at Cirencester where they have new SPs this year I'd say there were roughly equal numbers of vans and MHs.
Personally, I think it's an unnecessary upgrade, but there's no doubt that they are very popular with both types of unit.
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There could be several reasons. One may be that you are almost guaranteed a hardstanding which is important to a fairly high percentage of motorhomers. Having said that I am not really sure why anyone would actually ask the question. If as a motorhomer I decide to pay the extra nightly fee for a serviced pitch where is the problem with that? The additional fee I pay (which I reckon is twice as much as it should be) is clearly subsidising members using non service pitches. Be interesting to know how much the Club spend on installing WiFi of a site, I bet it costs a lot more than providing taps and drains to a few pitches!!!! ( a site with 10 serviced pitches with 80% occupancy will bring in over £11000 extra a year) I have been known to use a few serviced pitches as a bit of a luxury from time to time. We use our own facilities so usually top up our water once a day and perhaps get rid of waste water every couple of days. Call it lazy but just turning on the tap and opening the waste water is so easy.
David
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One may be that you are almost guaranteed a hardstanding which is important to a fairly high percentage of motorhomers
Not in this case as all the site was HS.
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Motorhoming as done on this island, by Brits, is a relatively new and still evolving trend. Is buying one and sticking it on a pitch for days on end without moving common in Europe as well? It still seems a bit of strange thing to do to me, buying something that is designed to move around from place to place, but not exactly doing that? (Could be size related I suppose?)
I understand why some folks move to a MH, particularly if they either don't like towing or prefer the ease of a MH in terms of chores over a caravan. Or is it the move over from a caravan and keeping things almost the same?
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