Overnight campers' action
Comments
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why is it ok for a local to 'meander down and have lunch in the car' when it's apparently not for someone in a MH to do exactly the same?
i have just looked at this stretch of road on google maps and can't see hoardes of MH parking anywhere..perhals you could be more specific as I have to come to Portsmouth in a few weeks and will be overnighting somewhere, this might make a nice change....
dont worry, I'll arrive at 10pm, be gone by 7:30 and take my rubbish with me....
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Found this interesting article, some may already have seen it
I think that respect for places visited, and local people, has to be considered. Neither MH or caravans are attractive if congregating in huge numbers, we stayed at Hurn Lane Club Site for first time last month, arrived in dark, and were horrified at what was all around us next morning, thousands of little white boxes as far as the eye could see! (Club Site was nice, as expected, but we will never go back, location not our kind of place)
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Yes, I know several motorhome owners in our town who have to, or choose to park their vehicles on the road outside or near their home. To the casual observer they just may appear to be tourists. Although we keep ours in storage we sometimes bring it home and park outside on the road overnight if we need to pack or work on it. It's too easy sometimes to jump to conclusions. Some even seem to enjoy this.
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Unfortunately your last sentence is a bit off the reality mark BB, as there are many places in the uk where both motorhomes and even caravans are being parked up and being used as alternative living accommodation. One of our relatives looks out on a large converted prison van parked up in front of their home, there are several similar vans in the area (a city.) It's a growing problem for some and this leaves owners of vans which are used for leisure only possibly exacerbating local feelings about LVs when they are seen to be parked up in certain places for lengthy stays.
Exmouth has been mentioned, where there is a temporary trial going on for M/H overnight parking. Fees have to be paid but there are no safety features, vans are parked up close together with generators and BBQs being used. In these times of cash strapped councils is this an ok use of much needed funds for social care etc? Especially when there are already local sites for vans?
It's a dilemma because people are looking for something that is free but someone has to pay somewhere.
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think you are missing the point BB
I have no objection to MH owners meandering down and having lunch in their MH, my point was, this luxury and i call it a luxury because there are not many areas today where parking on the beach is FOC would probably be taken away if parking charges were introduced for MH who wanted to maybe stay overnight. To recoup the monies needed to provide such a facility, which again has been alluded to in a previous post, local councils would no doubt introduce blanket charging.
of course you cannot see hoardes of MH parking, the sun has gone winter is upon us and they are now probably all in Spain.
arrive at 10pm be gone by 7.30 pm, well this would be breaking the law, because as i said previously, although parking is FOC in most of the car parks there is a by-law which prohibits "habitation", so yes park by all means, stay overnight, but might i suggest you then find a local B&B and help our local economy
in fact "habitation" is prohibited in most of the fee paying parks
and lots of height barriers 
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I can understand the ire of local residents towards 'long-stay' LVs but that can be resolved by the institution of a 24 or 48 hour parking limit.
As for the individual using additional parking space for his BBQ/chairs, I'd have been inclined to throw them in the sea as well. Such conduct along with waste discharge is anti-social and spoils it for the rest of us.
Prohibition of specific classes of vehicle opens a whole can of worms. What about 'white van man' who wants to stop for his lunch for instance? Same size, same colour ( mostly) as a motorhome.
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I think we are debating two things here. One is parking up overnight at minimum cost, legally, without causing nuisance to local residents/other visitors and moving on next day. All well and good, let’s hope local authorities make better use of potential overnight parking slots.
The other is having a holiday on the cheap, hoping not to be a nuisance, but ultimately spoiling the very nature of why we want to visit somewhere in the first place! That’s a balancing act between spend in the local area, and behaving so as not to alter the very nature of where we are, and upsetting local residents. It only takes one or two totally inconsiderate visitors to upset the balance, and spoil things for everyone.
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yes 24 or 48 hours limit, we have these already in the dedicated car parks but of course people do not adhere to the restrictions, to introduce more restrictions in non dedicated car parks would probably entail employing a man with a van on a more full time basis than now, and you know CY some parts of the Meon shore are quite isolated so restrictions would be difficult to enforce. Even in fee paying parks the enforcer as far as i can see only visits maybe twice per day so easy to break the rules.
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Overnight sleeping is banned in all 240 council owned car parks in Cornwall. Why?
Quote "Cornwall Cornwall wants to support local businesses and encourage visitors to use the many high qualitycampsites throughout Cornwall . There are many sites which provide clean and safe facilities at a wide range of locations."
Seems OK to lots of us who live here.
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but it's not your seafront, it's everybody's, isn't it....
i cycle to the local supermaket in Glastonbury and there are a few MHs parked up round the back but they are taxed...
there are also six or seven unattached caravans just left in the road...it's hard to tell if they are ever occupied but the issue is theybare not taxed and can't just be left on the road....
they are an absolute blight but I don't post on CT berating every caravan owner because I know it's only a few.....who should be moved on or their vans scrapped....I thought this was what the new tax/SORN/neither rules were all about...?
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I regularly see Caravanners parking their Caravans on Lay-Bys Roadside verges and grassy public areas. Those are in the minority and do not in any way represent Caravanners in general. Similarly Motorhomers who park up to the inconvenience of others are not representative of the Motorhoming fraternity.
Lets not have another Caravan V Motorhome thread again folks.
K
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DD from my perspective you could not be further from the truth. I only object to inconsiderate MH owners, as explained previously, but what i do object to re "don't want somebody else to get something for free or at little cost" and i give an example...on a local slip way that also doubles as a car park owned by a local entity, not the council, a person has had his MH parked for almost 4 months, despite the notice board clearly stating that overnight parking is not allowed, he has been moved on now, not sure what they have been doing for toilet /waste water facilities etc, he was running a small petrol generator, but this year it was just 1, no doubt others have spotted this opportunity and next year unless the no overnight parking rule is enforced there will be others, I have to say the area around the MH was kept reasonably clean, but the "others" may not be so environmentally friendly.
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Since by Rufs own admission and my observation "Meon shore is quite isolated", why is a couple of MHs overnighting such a big deal for the local residents. Providing they leave no mess, where is the harm? Is it a latent fear of 'travellers'?
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I see folk on both sides expressing their opinions and it's a shame that they can't do it without that sort of name calling, DD. And isn't your second point the reason some argue for metered electricity?
Going back to the OP, we have a similar "problem" on our estate - nothing to do with blocking views admittedly, but there's a guy who runs a removal company and very often used to park 3 or 4 vans on a blind corner on one of the estate roads. So the residents took their own action and parked their own vehicles on the road leaving no space for the vans - problem solved. If those residents feel strongly enough they could do similar.
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I detect a third and that’s the responsible view of wanting our seafronts and other areas to be kept pleasant, tidy and respectable for all to enjoy within the parameters laid down by the LAs. Not NIMBY-ism or jealousy but a sense of fair play.
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+1
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There’s yet another element. You cannot fairly compare somewhere the size of Europe, with its cultural history of motorhoming, it’s aires and different town/village culture, with a tiny little island like GB, where space is at a premium, our network of cheaper sites (CLs, CSs) are primarily rural based, and as we know if an Englishman buys and owns his “castle”, woe betide if having spent all that money for a nice retirement view, anything threatens it!
We have regular battles with ordinary car owners attending rugby matches who think they can park up on our tiny narrow street (one car wide). They park up without a thought for local residents trying to get in and out of drives, or if they require an ambulance or other emergency service. We have a mobilised community response that involves a couple of 4x4s parked up half inch from both bumpers of offending cars. It means they are then inconvenienced, have to come knocking on doors to get out, whereby they get it explained to them how their selfishness impacts on others. All to avoid paying in car park 100 metres away. It doesn’t happen often, but is our way of avoiding our venal Council yellow lining the road and then charging us for parking permits!
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This was a very informative article & one Councils, MH owners and caravaners should embrace, speculate to accumalate, springs to mind, however, a negative not mentioned in the article was highway capacity. I had the pleasure of driving coaches in Scotland for a number of years, Carlise - Inverness, sometimes via the east coast route Mcduff etc, in just a couple of years I noticed, yes MH growth in particular, in the area which was becoming a problem on some roads, and i think I have seen some complaints within this forum, re challenging roads in some parts of Scotland. As a caravaner I do try to avoid roads that could be challenging, but again, not knocking MH's, despite some of them being nearly as big as the coaches i drove, some of the people driving them did seem to think they were driving a car, yes i know the same could be said of caravaners, just an observation from an ex professional driver.
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I’m starting to get the impression that you’re not keen on MHs in general, Rufs.😕
It’s a good job the club has formally embraced us.👍🏻
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will campsites go the way of high street shops?
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