I want to use CC sites - but why is it so hard?!

This is not intended to be simply a whinge or a moan, before anyone suggests I'm being unfairly negative - it really is a genuine headscratching attempt to make sense out of how best to use this club (and I would very much welcome input and site suggestions!). 

We are members of both the CC and the C&CC and have been for the last couple of years.  We joined both clubs as we use various aspects of both, but somehow, despite our best intentions, we only ever seem to stay on C&CC sites. 

We live in Leeds, and are regularly looking for a CS or CL within a couple of hours for our weekends away.  Perhaps we are asking too much, as we like EHU. shower and loo onsite, but we haven't managed to find any CC sites at all.  The website searchability on here is truly dire on the laptop and pretty much unusable on a smart phone (and there's no app), and the big book is wonderful if you have all the time in the world to browse, but I'm looking to do a quick search on a Thursday night when I've seen Friday's forecast.  I've still genuinely not managed to find a suitable small site within an hour and a half of Leeds - surely that's not right?  I can see that there's 45 CL sites within 20 miles of Leeds - I want to limit those by facilities and increase that to 50 miles, not plough through all 45 checking their facilities, remembering to check that they accept children, then (when nowhere comes up) think of somewhere 3Omiles away and start the process all over again!

We have tried to book CC Club sites in the past - they are invariably booked up at weekends, I know that's a constant complaint so there's no point rehashing it.  However, we finally managed to stay at the CC Club site at Clumber for a midweek night a couple of weeks ago - it is absolutely gorgeous, but we'll never be going back.  We were only staying for one night, and had no idea we were supposed to be onsite by 7pm - there was nothing in our bookings confirmation to tell us this.  The very friendly and helpful warden allowed us to stay in the late arrivals area when we arrived an hour or so after this time, but that arrival time is crazy!  Few people can finish work before 5.30 - how can they get home, hitch up and be onsite before 7pm unless they live practically on top of the site?  It almost feels like a policy designed to discourage working families and encourage retirees.  To us, it makes a weekend away pointless if you can't arrive on a Friday night, surely it makes for an extremely expensive overnight stay for a half day Saturday?  If the C&CC can hold a pitch until 11pm, why is the CC arrival time so ludicrously early?

I want to use the CC - I'm a club member, for heaven's sake, and I want to make the most of my membership - but how do the rest of you find new sites to stay on?

Oh blimey, that does sound like a very lengthy whinge - sorry!  I do want to use my CC membership to the full but am just feeling very discouraged and frustrated :-(