This lady charges £4.50 per day for a hookup on her site. If someone stayed there for one year, I make that £1642.50 for a hookup of 13 amps max., possibly as low as 10 amps. it would cost a further £2 per day for a dog (£730).
Did you know that it is illegal to re-sell electricity at a higher price than you pay for it. Virtually every campsite in the counry is guilty of this. Because campers only stay for very short periods, it goes unnoticed. Stay long term and it is very expensive. My total Gas AND Electric bills for the year fall well short of the cost of one miserable hookup on a site.
I also noticed on her website that a dog costs £3 per day if you are in a Static caravan. Why the £1 extra?
I think that has got to be the most ludicrous analogy of this entire debate! This is a camp site where people come for a few days. Do you know, my local council charges £2 per hour on its car parks. If I were to park my car all the time it would cost me £48 a day or £17,520 a year. That is disgraceful! Making me pay £17,000 a year when I can park free on the street outside my house!
Camp sites are regulated and examined regularly by trading standards officers. The cost of the actual electricity is just a portion of the cost of installing hook-ups to each pitch, maintaining them and subjecting them to annual safety checks. But of course, no one ever thinks of little things like that because they know bugger all about the true cost of running a business.
But let's look at the charges that this woman makes. She has been accused of 'fleecing' customers, rip-off prices to park 'on her patch of grass' and generally being a total con artist.
Her site must be of quite a high quality as it was a runner up in the AA's Campsite of the Year awards. Off season it charges £11 a night for a pitch and two people. At the height of the season it charges £18.95 a night. Electricity is £4.50 making a total in low season of £15.50 and in high season a total of £23.45. I wish I could find good sites at these prices in France and Spain at the height of the season! Rip off Britain eh!
One member accused her of charging £60 a night. Of course he'd read from another member that sites in Cornwall charge £50-70 a night and simply decided that this terrible woman must be charging the same!
But in my opinion she is being totally honest! She could, as many do, include electricity in her charges which would probably infuriate people on here even more as they often don't want it. But she doesn't and she gives you the choice and keeps her pitch prices lower.
Now, I really have no idea what it costs to provide electric hook-ups and maintain them but I have no doubt that she has convinced the relevant authorities that her charge is justified. In cooler months people will run heaters in their awnings all day!
But what really is appalling, is the utter character assassination of a women simply voicing her opinion. She's not stupid, she'll know that all motorhomers who wild camp won't flood onto her site but can't you see what may have moved her to speak? She pays the local council a fortune in business rates and when she walks out of her door she sees dozens of motorhomers lining up on the prom and paying nothing. She is entitled to her opinion, you and others may disagree but what you shouldn't do is insult and belittle her for having an opinion. And we wonder why motorhomers are disliked? Although I have to say that I have never experienced this hatred that people claim is directed at them and I believe that most of it is wild exaggeration!
Here is a link to her site:
Boscrege Caravan and Camping Park
And finally, a tip for you all. If you want to park your 'van somewhere for a whole year make sure that you don't choose a holiday site in one of the most popular counties in the country where EHU is charged separately! There are many cheaper alternatives!
Edited to say: I forgot to mention the dog charges and again this is an example of people totally unaware of the facts and jumping to the the same old conclusion that it's a rip-off charge. This site, like many these days, has partitioned a section of its land to make a very large dog-walking field, so that owners may exercise their dogs without having to leave the site.
This means that the land in question, which could host another large number of static caravans or campers, is costing a lot of money. So they charge £2.00 for dogs to cover the cost of providing this facility. Isn't this fair? The dog owners are the ones responsible for the loss of revenue in leaving a large area non-productive. Why should we, who don't have dogs, bear this cost?
And why do people renting statics pay more for their dogs? Well, I would have thought that absolutely obvious. If you're in your own caravan or motorhome your dog is making your property dirty and smelly. If you're renting a static caravan your dog is making the site owner's property dirty and smelly. And yes, I know that that's a modest exaggeration but dogs can damage 'vans and fabrics, and anyone who's visited a friend's 'van where there are dogs will know what I mean! Owners somehow get used to the pong and don't even know it's there!
