Pembrey Country Park
In the past several years we have always booked Pembrey Country Park site in the autumn and liked the fact that it stayed open until the first week in January each year so it was possible to spend New Year there too. Sadly, this year the site is closing at the end of October and not reopening until March.
This is such a loss as there are few sites with good facilities available in late autumn. Very disappointed with the Club's decision to close it early.
Comments
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We noticed today that the same thing is happening at Troutbeck Head and Coniston Park Coppice, last year the former had been open until early January and the latter open all year! Lack of bookings perhaps!!
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We've been using Troutbeck head at least three times a year since 1999 when we joined and it was in fact our first site.
When working we used always used for the October half term and then it would close, there were a few years when it was open till January but the last few years it's been closing in the beginning of November, and the same for 2025?
I can't see it being due to lack of bookings this year as it's not closing early (is it?) as the closing date for this year would have made the previous year(s) when that opening dates were published so any lack of bookings would would have come from early, or pre even 2023.
Same with Park Coppice - no early closing?
I assume these sites are closing at this time as it's not viable to keep them open later based on the data from pre 2023?
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Wasn't it last year that the club started to reassess site opening across the network? I expect that October half term and Christmas/New Year might be busy but its the bits in between where the losses are which isn't recovered by the two periods I mentioned. I don't imagine for one moment the club would close sites if they thought they could recover their costs?
David
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I suspect it’s the energy costs and staffing costs of keeping a site open. Members will use a great deal more energy this time of year, as will facility blocks. Sites with facility blocks will probably need more staff for cleaning, so it’s possibly cheaper just to close them.
Condensing visitor numbers into a shorter season relies upon hitting income targets through a reduced time period. There’s only two ways you can do this……..increase usage, or put the prices up.
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Keeping the caravan at Strathclyde Park I do see the numbers there in Winter are very low often down to 20 or so. In that case the 300 plus of us paying over £500 for the storage probably keep it open but without that that I can see why other sites close.
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CS, in the 2023-2024 site directory it lists Park Coppice as being open all year and that Troutbeck as closing after the 3rd Jan 2024. As the club no longer sends out an site update I cannot say when they changed the dates, be it during the 2023 season or this year. The wardens here at Troutbeck were saying that this has not been as busy this year as previously, and currently the site is only about 1/4 full.
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NTF as you know sites directories are printed well in advance, covering two years and are often out of date by the time they are printed and certainly out of date by the end.
As DK posted site opening times were revised last year.
TH is a large site (150 pitches) so a quarter full at this time is really quite good in my experience of using it throughout the year. It was full last BH.
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