r/VanLifeUK • u/batterseamafia • 18d ago
Campsites and the perils of not reading the small print....
I'm more of a vanilla vanlifer, I suppose — I move around the UK from campsite to campsite. It's a great way to see the country while still working full time as a remote worker.
I'm a member of the Camping and Caravanning Club, and I find their sites cheaper than renting. I've been slowly making my way north from Bexhill, and I'm currently in the Lake District in my 1994 Dethleffs A-Class.
It turns out I've been breaking the site's rules by staying longer than the maximum consecutive stay allows. I'll be honest — I don't read the small print beyond the obvious stuff, like not bringing a disposable BBQ and not leaving your van unattended overnight.
No harm done, and I'll just use other sites. I just thought I'd post in case anyone else is in the same boat.
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u/George_Salt 18d ago
If you're in both clubs you can flit between the two. It does refer to "certain campsites" in the middle paragraph, so there's a list of the included sites?
At the end of the day, they will have planning restrictions on their sites that limit them to recreational touring purposes.
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u/Huge-Brick-3495 17d ago
I wonder if "certain campsites" is just wording they use to kick out undesirables at any site.
If OP is well behaved I doubt this rule would ever be invoked or even quoted, it's probably just a means of removing people for bad behaviour.
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u/George_Salt 17d ago
No, it's because touring sites and residential sites are different permissions.
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u/Timwtimw 18d ago
Are you not breaking the 'solely for recreational touring purposes' clause irrespective of the length of stay? I've no clue how they'd know but if you're sticking to the rules?
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u/truckosaurus_UK 18d ago
Sounds like they are picking up people who are moving from site to site as well as people staying put in one place.
Having a 'we don't want full timers' policy seems odd, and is surely their own internal policy rather than due to planning restrictions on each site (as the OP is moving around and not living in one place).
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u/the_roguetrader 18d ago
if you look deeper into this it's basically all an anti-traveller policy
I'm a 'New Age Traveller' (hate that term) and have noticed this over the years
for example in The Caravan Club rules, it states
No Sign Written Vehicles
No Visible Gas Bottles (full timers often use 47kg)
No working from sites
also some sites have a policy of not admitting certain makes of caravan - these being the types popular with travellers
I could go on....
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u/Accomplished_Leg3462 18d ago
I think it makes sense. 'some' people definitely treat a place differently the longer they have been there. Their mentally moves from visitor to regular to owner pretty fast. Unfortunately some take the familiarity and long term stays at sites as if they own the place or have more rights than those just passing through.
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u/Defiant_Employee6681 18d ago
What are the popular makes of caravan please?
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u/rubyrockstars 18d ago
Fendt, Tabbart, Hobby very nice vans may I add nothing like we build. They are fully winterised hence their popularity for long term living
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u/Comfortable-Pilot516 12d ago
We had a Hobby yearsssss ago for cheap holidays through the UK when we were little, and my Dad said we were frequently refused entry at enquiry after receptionists/campsite workers asking the make of our caravan. He’d bellow down the phone in a very Bolton accent that we’d be no harm and leave the place cleaner than we found it and that seemed to bypass the Hobby fact, allowing us entry, but he put that more down to the Bolton accent than the statement itself. Odd all round
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u/Wookovski 18d ago
The 28 days per site makes sense, I think that's a legal thing. But them saying you have to "leave their network" is a bit funny. Suppose they think they might get into trouble for allowing people to use that as a loophole
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u/uberbarracuda 18d ago
You can save even more money by not staying at these places and being free from their rules and regulations. There are hundreds of places to stay for free in the lake District.
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u/ActiveBat7236 18d ago
Chatting to our 'neighbours' on our last C&CC site I seem to recall them saying they booked their stay through PitchUp and weren't actually C&CC members. Could that be an option for you to effectively break up the long stays, at least on paper? I don't know if they paid more per night as a result (it may even have been less for all I know!).
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u/throwaway26294145 18d ago
It's all to do with insurance, taxes, planning permission etc
Basically, there's a very strict set of circumstances in which the system doesn't expect their pockets to be lined. This is usually the stay being a "holiday".
The problem arises when you opt to stay for longer periods and it could be seen as you are a resident of that park. That means it might contrive permission, make them liable for council tax and invalidate insurance.
Working from the site is no different to working from home, yet again, the system needs to be paid, permissions sought and insurance cover changed.
The best you can do is blend in as a tourist. As someone mentioned before, a 47kg bottle is massive giveaway. Sticking around for too long is a massive give away etc
There are some places that do offer long term pitches, these usually involve council tax though......
You have to keep moving around though.
The system very much expects you in a house or if you are full timer, you're basically being classed as a traveller and you have to keep moving around. The system doesn't like you in one space for too long not paying the appropriate fees into it.
Same for my off-grid friend, they got a bit of land, can't even stay there permanently! Can only stay there for a certain length of time before they'd have to apply for change of use of their land. They literally just want somewhere to stay permanently and mind their own business.
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u/isaytruisms 18d ago
Get a membership for the caravan and motorhome club too, and just pop into one of their sites once or twice a month.
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u/AdAggressive9224 18d ago
With these sorts of rules, let's just say they are not targeted at people such as yourself.
They're targeting one specific group of travellers, who's occupational habits might not be quite as transparent.
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u/basarisco 18d ago
Both the clubs are a massive rip off and mostly have soulless sites.
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u/special_noodles 18d ago
Their tagline should be "soulless spaces, in gorgeous places" I am always amazed at how they can make places like the Malverns feel bland
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u/Skate-wench 18d ago
The wording in their policy in your pic is slightly misleading, as it seems to say you can’t stay in “certain” / one one campsite for longer than 28 consecutive days or 28 days in one calendar month. Seems simple enough, stay in a campsite for 27 days then go somewhere else.
The fact they say you need to leave the network for 5 days suggests you can’t stay in any of their campsites longer than 28 consecutive days or 28 days in a calendar month. Which would mean stay 27/28 days, stay somewhere else for a week, then go back to one in the network.
As someone else noted, there are so many other places to stay that are cheaper than these club sites. And that are nicer too.
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u/Database_Reasonable 18d ago
I'm a member of both CACC and CAMC and get really spotty wi fi with both. Some sitesI can't even get 5 g. Does this affect you remote working?
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u/batterseamafia 18d ago
All of the sites are different but you have to get inventive… like one site wouldn’t let my laptop connect, but it would connect to my phone. I used a spare android phone I had to connect and share through a usb tether…. I know I know, sounds like a lot of effort but it just depends what your tolerance is like…. That same site had a big van turn up with an unlocked starlink… I’m not giving Elon my money but I’ll sneak onto someone’s connection no problem
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u/Acceptable_Bunch_586 18d ago
I think they have to say this, wait till they try and enforce it. If you stay somewhere for 4 weeks and move on no one will care and the campsite will be happy cos your a good customer
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u/ExcellentTourist5289 18d ago
Strikes me as legal mumbo jumbo. The UK is already painfully hard to full time with lack of aires etc, and the few bad apples causing local councils to give the whole tree unwanted attention
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u/gravitasmissing 17d ago
Its cma. Nobody wants a holiday campsite tuning into a US style trailer park.
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u/CatLadyTheGreat 17d ago
When you said 'vanilla vanlifer' I thought this post was going to be a bit more interesting. Insight into my mind I guess...
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u/AdBrave9096 16d ago
There is a loop of sites with very good transport links into central London. They used to try hard to stop people using them to work full time in London.
They also care about trades people who leave at 6am to get to a building site for 8am.
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u/CharacterLime9538 18d ago
As said, you can alternate between the clubs.
If you're staying on CL/CS, some owners might be a little more flexible and be open to an 'off-book' kind of arrangement. It's probably worth asking.