Servicing calls at CLs for Motorcaravans
Comments
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Biggarmac
I am not sure it is as simple as that. You are right that the certification allows for five units to be on site but how would anyone know if the sixth unit was just using the facilities or actually staying on site if one was just taking a snapshot of a point in time. If the filling and emptying facilities were off the CL area maybe so but I wonder what the CMC would make of that scenario? It think that may also require local authority agreement. There is also the issue of volume of waste. CL's are geared up to having five units on site and the waste facilities are geared to that. Perhaps having the odd motorhome stop once every few days could be accommodated but if there was a steady stream of several a day the facilities would be overwhelmed nullifying any financial benefit to the CL owner. CL's often don't have people around all day to collect fees which opens the possibility of abuse.
On the plus side there is an organisation called the Road to the Isles Facilities Group which is raising funds to provide the facilities that would help in your circumstances. The more that donate the more facilities that will be provided. Whilst I am unlikely to make use of them I did make a small donation as I thought it a good idea.
David
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Yes I agree fully, I assume CL owners are responding to what people want.
But I'm asking BM as she appears to be lamenting the idea that basic CLs are disappearing and perhaps she should ask herself why?
She did post Not everyone wants the all singing all dancing sites...
perhaps they do
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I know people who have made tentative enquiries about opening a CL. They have been told by the representative of the CMC who has visited them that unless they were willing to put in EHUs, toilets and showers they would not be accepted. They decided not to go ahead with the CMC.
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One reason is that when people buy vans the salesman tells them how to plug in the electric cable, but not how to use the 12 volt system. Most vans can be used off grid, but most owners have no idea how to use them in that way.
Those of us who like rallies and meets would happily use basic sites if they were available.
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That is not the case at all. All that is required is a tap, rubbish disposal and an emptying point for waste, and insurance.
Standard facilities
CLs are required to provide a minimum standard
of facilities. These are:
Safe access for caravans and motor
caravans to include a 3.66m (12 foot)
minimum width gateway and safe approach
road.
Safe drinking and rinsing water taps. If you
are on non-mains water we will require proof
from you on an annual basis that your water
is safe to drink.
A secure emptying point for chemical waste
water.
An adequate number of covered bins for the
disposal of dry refuse.
Public Liability Insurance. You will need PLI to
cover a minimum of £2,000,000. This can be
arranged with your current insurer or through
the Club. Our Public Liability Insurance
letter will give you more information about
insurance requirements and Club policies.see: https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/globalassets/pdfs/content/about-us/setting-up-a-cl-guide.pdf
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Campra.org.uk now has over 15,000 members and is working with many different providers. I mentioned it on this forum months ago and got most of the same responses then!
Hopefully more CL owners will spot the business opportunity. If someone calls to use the waste disposal and there are pitches free they might decide to stay for longer if the welcome is good.
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Really so CL put in EHU and toilets… just because the salesman says so?
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We are looking at all the options available this year, to ensure we can tour as we want, and at a nightly cost we consider reasonable. Club and CLs are just one string to our bow, but we have decided to look at more basic stops that just give us somewhere to sleep legally, fill up and drop waste where we can. To that end, decided to buy Britstops guide, see what takes our fancy. If we use it a few times, it will be worth it. Likely to give us a push into staying somewhere a tad different as well, so another positive.
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Even on cc sites i have been "without electicity " as two days at Black Knowl one trip when the transformer from the grid blew up as did the nearly full site ,and again last year at FM when the site power went down all day so i would think quite a few members will know how to work without the umbilical to the Bollard
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I'm not against Biggarmac's suggestions although it's not something I'm personally searching for as I like to have a rest when travelling and overnight car parks etc don't do it for me. We once watched the car park at Stonehaven fill up with overnighters and the safe spacing between the vans was compromised. We've seen it in Devon too with nose to tail vans and bbqs etc. I found the update for the Scottish Forestry experiment LINK. I think there was tremendous pressure on Scotland last year with many freewheeling motorhomers heading there, under the misconception that there was plenty of space and they could vanish into the scenery.. Maybe these are the motorhomers who usually head off to Spain etc. However we met a lot staying on sites in the south of the uk and there was room for them.
I can't quite make up my mind about the lifestyle either and whether I should be bothered when there are provisions already on sites and safe overnight spaces to stay.
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I'm not anti either, Brue, and neither am I pro but I have trouble grasping BM's reason for posting. Is she asking others to do the work to achieve what she wants or seeking suggestions - of which we've given plenty?
Starting threads on the same old topic is bound to generate the same old responses. Far better to be proactive and go out there lobbying for what is wanted. 👍
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Hopefully more CL owners will spot the business opportunity.
If they do, they would have to put up the standard motorhome dump sign under the CL sign and advertise more widely in some way. I have seen at least one CL who highlights they have a proper MSP. You would think if it is on a mains drain there would be some profit in opening it up to passers by.
If a proper MSP wasn't available I would have to be pretty desparate to stop off and use it. If I am on a CL for say a long weekend, I arrive with full tanks of fresh water and I am more than likely to take my grey waste home where it is much easier to dump than trudge across a field with bucket fulls. Same goes for shows and rallies. I have always made the point for Club sites to offer this service to members on the basis that it is rarely convenient to service a motorhome when staying on a CL
peedee
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We didn’t have much trouble winging a tour (booking on the road, just checking day before we moved) last September, and we stayed at some top notch sites....... picturesque CL near Rothbury, £8. Small Private site/CL near Berwick on Tweed, £12 per night. Small private Site, near Powburn (full facilities), £15 per night. Racecourse Site, with brand new facilities at Hexham, £15. I think we averaged something like £13.50 for the whole holiday. That to me is wonderful value. I want to be safe as well, not inches away from another outfit, no matter how many pounds I save, so fully endorse what brue says.
If had a pound for every time someone said to me last September, “oh we usually go abroad, we can’t get a pitch and isn’t it expensive?” I could have funded our whole holiday. Two different things happening there.......possibly out of touch with how things now work in UK (you have to be pro active, willing to compromise, get that bit more organised) and yes, you might have to pay more to get what you need. Once you accept that this is the way it is, it’s fine. Folks can happily hop back over the Channel once it’s safe to do so, and go back to enjoying what they know and love, but at the moment, the UK way, whether you love or hate it, is what we have got🤷♀️ Hopefully, it won’t be too long for those that do tour predominantly overseas, it must be frustrating.
Last place we would go this year is far North of Scotland. Just too many doing it now, ticking the boxes. Fabulous place, but it’s become a victim of its own success. Better to go back when things have calmed down a bit. Mind, I don’t do midges either, so it’s no Summer loss to me😉
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There were no rallies last year and and many normally make use of these, where there are basic facilities at a very reasonable price. This must have put pressure on places to stay. Motorhome clubs, private organisations and both the CAMC and C&CC organise a lot of these all year round. There's usually quite a bit of choice out there.
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Seems like Wild camping can mean many things to many people , the one I'm used to seeing on various out of the way car parks & remote areas be they coastal or countryside venues is the mess & filth left behind , don't compare in the least possible way to people hiking the footpaths & byways of the United Kingdom during the day, stopping to pitch up for the night & moving on the next day, leaving the chosen area totally as they found it before they camped.
I've done that myself many years ago while cycling from Derbyshire to Lincolnshire /Norfolk and back for a short break.
Let's call a spade a spade shall we & replace the word ' Wild ' with 'Free' .
Many a countryside beauty spot car park as been closed by the local councils to discourage such Wild Camping in my home county of Derbyshire.
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Good post and how those who these days it seems, are not willing to be flexible or wring their hands at any thing that cannot be spoon fed to them
I have posted before it is still quite possible to do tours on the spur of the moment,in the UK it is just a bit more "dificult?" at high peak times, with the growing it seems, LV market in this country and "staycations" and i agree with the problems that untill the novelty wears off , the NC500 will blight the North of Scotland
The Wales tour that is being promoted by visit Wales will soon start to be a problem also
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Here you have it, it seems to be a hijacked name subsumed by the LV fraternity as a way of adding a thin veil of cool acceptability to what is a not very nice pursuit🤷🏻♂️☹️-
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There are now very very few places in England you can truly wild camp, and none of them to my knowledge involve a motorhome! Mostly tents, a few will allow small camper vans. Dartmoor used to allow wild tent camping in certain locations, but after the mayhem of last year, this has been revised, some areas are now banned and it’s much more closely monitored.
There are one or two websites with good links to places like farms that allow wild tent camping. No use whatsoever to MH owners though.......Forestry Commission are opening up more car parks for overnight stays, no facilities, and last time I looked, £10 per night. Limited numbers allowed, and probably (hopefully) with cc cameras to monitor behaviour.
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There is an element within this thread and the one that Ted started about CL owners (now locked) which I think illustrates that the leisure vehicle market and requirement of owners is changing but the acceptance of that change is difficult for some to reconcile. When I caravanned the prospect of staying elsewhere other than a campsite/CL probably wouldn't have entered my mind. However since becoming a motorhomer I am more sympathetic even if I have no immediate plans to join the free/wild campers. The fact that in Europe there are thousands of perfectly legal free overnight stops provided probably leads to some puzzlement as to why the same is not true in the UK?
One element of Ted's website I found interesting was that he felt the need to spell out to CL owners was the different requirements needed to attract motorhomers. Anyone reading the various motorhome forums and Facebook pages will realise there is a very high demand to be free of the conventional campsite solution for overnight stays. The education for motorhomers is to point out that such freedom doesn't come without a cost. Although, apparently, the Club have embraced motorhoming they have done so within the conventional framework of campsites. It might not be practical for all sites to offer a waste and refill option but there will be some sites where such a facility could be offered and perhaps it's time for the Club to experiment? If it doesn't work the experiment can be ended but if it does it could be extended.
David
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It might not be practical for all sites to offer a waste and refill option but there will be some sites where such a facility could be offered and perhaps it's time for the Club to experiment?
I, personally, have no desire for the club to provide these facilities for those choosing to stay where there are non. Whilst I do not directly condemn those doing so I see no reason for CMC to promote it.
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The education for motorhomers is to point out that such freedom doesn't come without a cost.
I doubt this is true David. A survey last year in which 9000 owners responded indicated 96 percent of owners were willing to pay £10 per night just to park overnight and would pay more if there were motorhome services available as well. I think there are very very few who expect to pay nothing and of the 4 percent who wouldn't pay £10, considering it to be too expensive, they would probably be willing to pay something.
I think this year there will either be a shake up of the conventions in the UK which will attract more motorhome owners to tour the UK or a golden opportunity will be missed and might not be recovered perhaps for ever.
peedee
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and of the 4 percent who wouldn't pay £10 considering it to be too expensive, they would probably be willing to pay something
How do you know this? equally one could say they willing to pay nothing?
Could you perhaps post a link to this survey?
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... I, personally, have no desire for the club to provide these facilities for those choosing to stay where there are non. Whilst I do not directly condemn those doing so I see no reason for CMC to promote it.
why? .... you say you're never on the site through the day so they'd have little or no impact on you
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I think we are now back to where we were when BM (OP) posted her original thread on a similar vein a few months ago.
There is a need for someone, be it a group of entrepreneurs, local councils, part of the landowning/farming community, etc.... to provide safe, simple, value for money overnight stops for those who like to tour, but don’t want more than a couple of nights in the same place. Space, firm under wheel, fill up tap, empty point, CDP point, secure book and pay system. In reality, a coach park plus.
It won’t come via this Club, at least not until Motorhomes vastly outnumber caravans, and the Membership is more new to touring, rather than switching from a caravan to a motorhome. It has no reason to change its provision, which is based upon the majority of users pitching up for a longer period, wanting a full range of services, and happily paying for that provision. The Club thrives on long stayers, two weeks or more, even if it is split over two, three Club Sites. That’s it’s primary/preferred Site model. Fill as many pitches as possible, preferably as long as possible. Same with a lot of CLs, (and why some will be putting a minimum nights stay on their website no doubt, which I don’t blame them for, to a certain extent.) The basic CLs, with a lot less in terms of overheads to cover, perhaps merely enhancing another major income string, will remain truer to the original touring around provision.
The Club will only look to change this model, and possibly provide something it currently doesn’t, if it starts to hit the Membership fees drastically. It could put a toe in the water, and try a bit of this if it wanted, but it simply doesn’t need too at the moment. Money is being used in a different way, into glamping, because the rewards are greater.
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