Club prices getting silly

Which site did you stay at near Dartford? Been there a few times, not exactly crowded or a tourist trap?

A great shame to hear that some sites are thinking of closing up JK. As you are probably aware, locals would rather see many caravans arriving, campers and people holidaying at holiday parks, hotels and B&Bs. What we don’t want is more using holiday cottages and Airbnb’s. With so many second homes and holiday lets locally many villages are loosing their historical ‘village community’. Many villages are almost totally empty in the winter. With next to no social housing in North Devon and tenants in rental homes being evicted to make way for Airbnb use our local councils have announced a very severe housing crisis. Young people here don’t get a look in with so many buying and using what should be homes as holiday homes. Pubs, restaurants and cafes are closing because they cannot get youngsters to work for the wages offered, due to staff having nowhere to live locally. Other restaurants and pubs have had to hike their prices in order to attract any staff they can, so I think that we and the holidaymakers will be paying a lot more to go out here this year. 

Hja

I am not sure if I have misunderstood JK's post but it appeared to me that he was suggesting that despite their better value no facility sites were not always as popular as full facility sites? It might of course be nothing to do with the actual sites per se but their location. Given the increase in motorhome ownership no doubt there will be an increase in demand for hardstandings so perhaps that is becoming more of an issue if you have a site without. The same will be true of CL's. Going back to location, an out of the way site might be fine if you are a caravanner with a car but not so good if you are a motorhomer? An increasing number of CL owners seem to be investing a lot of money in their CL's to almost make them into mini Club sites. However that takes a lot on money and prices naturally rise in order to recoup the investment. As I mentioned before the Club can only look at their occupancy rates across the network. They can drill down into that information to work out what sort of pitches appear more popular and which ones tend to be avoided, using that information they can plan with some certainty when they update a site.

David

Even being a local person I didn’t realise you meant Dartmouth, David. 🤷🏻‍♂️

We like the non facility sites, yes they are sometimes out of the way but then again some of the sites are. 

Englethwaite Hall is always busy yet locally there is nothing for the MHs but you often see quite a few on site. We use it as a night halt when travelling to and from the South, I'm sure other's do likewise. 

Dockray Meadow is another non facility site, again unless you are prepared to cycle from the site there is nothing locally for the MHs, yet again we always see a good number of them on site. 

Killin is another favourite of ours, less than a mile from the full CAMC site always lots of MHs on it.

More and more MH owners are getting into the way of sightseeing, as they go from one site to another, so sites out of the way does not disadvantage them.

You only have to look at the popularity of the NC500 to see that MH owners are not put off by rural sites.

The main thing that this group of members are looking for, is VFM when choosing a site. They don't sit around all day on site they are out there 'doing' what they do look for is a site that is well placed and not overly expensive, just a nice clean place to park there wheels and get a good night's sleep safely.

They don't need to spend £35+ a night and neither do we.