Ups - and Downs
This was our first visit to Brighton CC and we came away with mixed feelings after our three night stay. Positives first - quite well placed for Brighton Marina, close to some open spaces for dog walking as there's no dog walk, friendly wardens and a tidy and clean site - including the toilet block next to us. Fully serviced pitches are in general so much easier and we wish there were more of them generally. BUT - negatives. The much publicised walk to Brighton Marina would be fine but much of that walk is unattractive and the Marina itself is shabby, fronted by a huge ASDA car park, and somewhat disappointing. The very front "Boardwalk" section is the place to aim for - some very nice restaurants overlooking the Marina itself - but in general it looked and largely felt dated. It is a VERY long walk into the Lanes area of Brighton, which we'd been told was worth a look, although in our experience it seemed to mainly consist of jewellers. The Seafront was attractive but short of having a drink in a hotel, we were disappointed at the lack of bars along it. The site - we have NEVER seen so many cars exceeding the 5mph limit - in fact we found sitting outside the van quite daunting as several went past us at 20mph or more DESPITE the speed bumps! That was true too of the rather younger users of the Camping pitches (we'd never seen a CC site with them before) - four of whom obviously thought it would be fun at dusk to drive out at speed to the gate. Somebody is going to get hurt if this isn't dealt with - if we'd had kids, I wouldn't have let them play off the pitch. Brighton seafront has NO signs about dogs and thus we took ours out to paddle - and were told by an officious lifeguard that it wasn't allowed - in fact, no such authority is in place that we could see and if the Town Council want to ban dogs, they need to put up signs to say so. To summarise - we liked the site well enough, the close proximity to Brighton is obviously a draw for motor-homers, and there were a lot of foreign visitors which is nice to see, and it's tidy and well kept. BUT - would we return? - the jury is out on that.
