i wonder why the majority of CCC club sites are still not open!why leave it so late, CMC have been open from march , they have all year sites but for the vast majority of sites its 11th april almost easter !!its a disservice to members squeezing the season even more !!
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It maybe a case of fingers burned last year! a LOT of sites (not just CCC) opened at typical time of year, then either struggled with awful conditions or were forced to close temporarily due to the excessive rain that prevailed.
Not stayed on many CCC sites, but have stayed on plenty of CAMC sites, and it's been a talking point that CAMC sites have been fine in bad weather, but nearby CCC have struggled, even closed and evacuated existing campers in case of Keswick. It may be that CCC have more grass pitches, whilst CAMC tend towards HS pitches.
I think the opening dates of many of the CCC sites which are not open all year have always been tied to the timing of Easter. Easter is really late this year which may explain the late opening. However, I bet they are kicking themselves because of the lovely weather over the past few weeks.
I’ve noticed on Facebook over the last few weeks that a number of CLs that we follow have announced they are opening early. They weren’t planning to open until the Easter weekend but have responded to the lovely weather. This is probably quite easy for a CL to do as there are only 5 pitches, and the sites are usually managed by their owners, but the logistics of opening early for a main club site would be much more difficult. The wardens they have contracted for the season may not be willing or able to start early and the site may not be prepared. It’s a shame though that they are not open for this lovely spell of weather.
Our nearest CCC site is at Culzean, Ayrshire (said Cullane; I’ve heard visitors saying Cull-seen). Like other sites, it opens at or after Easter, having closed Sept / Oct (haven’t checked recently). So it’s closed 6 months or half the year.
This is an eternal source of mystery to me: it’s adjacent to Culzean Country Park (NTS) right on the coast, which is open all year (including the toilets, re the risk of burst pipes at the CCC site) with miles of footpaths & wee beaches & swathes of snowdrops in Feb & thousands of old varieties of daffodils in March. We visit regularly as it’s the dog’s favourite walk. It’s very rarely snowy or a heavy frost here, the night skies are dark, the sunset views over to Arran are beautiful. It’s on the route north from the Irish ferry ports. The site is fully booked when it’s open (based on our inability to get in, last minute).
I do think it could & should be open all year, like Moffat (near the M74). I wonder if it’s a problem getting the 4 Managers for a rural location? Or is it an issue with the lease of the site? Who knows.
I'm VERY Peeeed off with CAMC who have taken to closing many of their sites for the winter months from a year or so back. As one of the wardens put it to me "pay for a years membership, and only have half a years camping opportunity"!
I used to go to one of my favourite sites at Coniston Park Coppice. I'd have a duel purpose visit there end of Oct into Nov for a couple of weeks or so, partly to get the dog away from the excessive and endless day and night fireworks in London around Diwali, which really upset her, and partly to enjoy the week of Powerboat Speed Trials on Coniston, which were only a 5 min stroll from the caravan.
Did that for a few years until CAMC put a stop to that by closing the site for winter from last year. They had always reduced the size of the site during winter by only utilising the pitches nearest to the entrance and reception. For the years I went there, the site was very busy, in fact often had difficulty booking it if left too late.
The news that CAMC were closing it over winter did not go down well with either campers OR wardens! No one could understand the reasoning, as it was busy enough to be financially viable and the wardens loved working there! Mind you, speak to the wardens on almost any CAMC site and they are disillusioned with management decisions and the 'logic' behind them! It does seem very much like the club does not listen to either it's members or it's public facing staff!
What Peees me off is the attitude, it's a CLUB with membership fees, it SHOULD be operating to the benefit of the members, if that means taking profit from the high season to bolster popular sites through the winter, so be it, so long as the club remains viable overall, this notion of high profitability on all sites at all times is wrong, they are meant to be running a service for members! It stinks of the Beeching cuts on the Railways in the 60's, and the current perpetual failures of TFL in London, where profit is God, and service is of no importance.
Salisbury C&CC used to have more grass pitches when I first stayed there in 2009/2010 as a tenter, and it opened just a couple of days before the Easter weekend.
Nowadays, they had converted a significant amount of grass pitches to hardstanding pitches to accommodate vans all year round as Salisbury and surrounding areas have a steady flow of visitors throughout the year.
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
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Afraid nowadays we no longer bother with club sites as we find private and commercial sites open for longer months than the clubs. Also with old age we now only use super pitches, no more fetching water and emptying and the clubs have very few of these,especially in areas we like to go. The clubs no longer are competitive prices compared to years ago when there was a benefit of becoming a member. We pay no more for super pitches than the clubs charge just for Electric Hardstanding.
Quote: Originally posted by birdman101 on 09/4/2025
Afraid nowadays we no longer bother with club sites as we find private and commercial sites open for longer months than the clubs. Also with old age we now only use super pitches, no more fetching water and emptying and the clubs have very few of these,especially in areas we like to go. The clubs no longer are competitive prices compared to years ago when there was a benefit of becoming a member. We pay no more for super pitches than the clubs charge just for Electric Hardstanding.
This is very much the same for us. We used to stay on a lot of CMC club sites but as we now prefer fully serviced pitches due to back problems which are exacerbated by lugging around heavy water and waste containers, and the CMC only have a small number of fully serviced pitches on each site, we now use private sites much more than CMC. We have also found that some really good private sites with facilities that are much better than the CMC are now considerably cheaper.
I’ve just looked back at my profile on this site as I always review every site we stay on so that I have a log, and in 2022 we spent 35 nights on CMC sites which was 53% of our total time away in the caravan. In 2023 that dropped to 28 nights which was 37% of our total for that year and in 2024 it dropped to 14 nights which was only 18% of our total number of nights away in the caravan.
We have all of our main breaks for this year booked now as well, and only 6 of these are with CMC. I can’t see this number rising much this year as we will only add on some spur of the moment weekends, and these will probably be at our favourite private site.
The main thing that the CMC still has over other private sites is the fact you can book for just one night. As we have got older, our tolerance for long days towing has diminished, and so journeys to some distant sites which we would have previously done in one day, are now split across 2 shorter days with an overnight stop. Finding a site to book for an overnight stop is not easy as most have a minimum 2 night stay, so this is where we use the CMC most.
Never found a CL with a 2 overnight stop rule. That said, we normally stay for 2 nights en route. Now in the early stages of planning a trip to Cornwall in July. Easter and May/June booked.
For over 40 years we did annual Cornwall trip in one go. But now do 200 mile and then one night stop just off the A30, with then the last 80 miles next day. After couple of weeks, drop down country to South coast and work our way back along the coast having 2 day stops, before heading home. Never found a problem booking,all done well in advance. We are now fully booked each month up to November.
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Not really adverse to, or should that be, not yet needing to break long journeys in most cases, 300 odd miles is not a problem, BUT Cornwall is an exception, I pretty much hate that journey, it just seems endless and exhausting! And always has done! Friends who moved there decades ago complain no one comes to visit, it's just too far to travel! Happy to do the same miles to another destination in one hit, but NOT Cornwall!
By chance late last year when looking for a site out of season to visit a number of friends and family in Somerset/Devon and struggling to find any sites still open, I stumbled across the CAMC Cadeside site near Wellington, literally 10 mins off the M5. It's a pretty convenient stopping off point, and cheap. Despite being a full club site, it's only 16 pitches and without toilets or showers. Benefit is it's on the outskirts of town, so within walking distance are shops and eateries, even a petrol station to avoid rip-off motorway fuel prices, and happily takes one night bookings. Not necessarily a site you'd want to stay at for the local area, but useful as a stop off or base to travel out from as I did.
It may suit someone heading to the wild (south) west, so thought worth mentioning.
I forgot to add, for C&CC club sites that open all year round, such as Salisbury and Devizes, only hardstanding pitches are available in the colder months, so that they don't have to mow the grass!
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
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via mobile 07/4/2025 at 11:19pm
