Are UK caravan parks 'down-market'?

I have no idea what happened to the title! GNHQ please fix it if possible.

If you can go to the site that takes your fancy and actually look at it for yourself (preferably when the schools are on holiday and it is busy) you will get the "ambience". Some are more popular with retired people, some with young families. The ones with a lot of "entertainment" , bars and so on, are more likely to be noisy. Ask if you can walk round and look at everything, including the shower block and any indoor games room.

There are some very smart ones around here, in East Angular. Some of them are in lovely countryside. The site fee covers employing someone to direct trademen to where you are, mow the grass and fix any flooding etc., it's no different from owning a flat and having to pay ground rent. The only alternative would be to buy a piece of land of your own and then put a static caravan on it. I suppose it also covers your annual rates, although I'm not sure about that. My inlaws own one as a holiday home, it is beautiful and in a lovely area, but be careful, many do stipulate that you have to leave during the month of February for at least a couple of weeks. Very few allow people to live there all the year round, which I find quite odd. Maybe so that the landowner can choose to sell the land if they wish, and you can't claim squatter's rights.

I have to agree with your friends Grannyknot . We had a static caravan for years (I cried when we were forced to give it up) on a lovely 5* site in Northumberland. The site fees were very expensive but there was no sub-letting allowed and it did keep out the riff-raff.

However many sites that call themsleves "upmarket" or 5* are very grotty. I couldn't name names on a public forum but there is one in particular in Northumberland that is very popular. We looked around it recently with a view to taking the children there for a few days in our tourer. All I can say is YUK. There is no way I could stay there never mind buy a static.

If you are seriously condsidering a static then I would suggest you do your homework and do it well. Visit the site several times before you decide and try to talk to some existing owners. Avoid sites that allow subletting like the plaque.

Spot on Elegran

There is a lot of snobbery when it comes to anything to do with a caravan, I don't understand why.

It is no different having a holiday/ owning a static van to any other holiday. You can have B&B's, Hotels, Apartments all rated and obviously varying in quality, location and usually clientele. The same applies to static caravan sites/parks.

If you only look at the holiday parks such as Haven they will have a total mixture of clients but they too have owners clubs and I know owners who really enjoy theirs. If you want peace and quiet they may not be for you but even they have areas that are quiet for owners. If they are sites that have amusements, kids entertainment, bars then you really have to accept they might not suit but they are not all like that, not that there is anything wrong with them, especially if you have children/grandchildren.

It was good advice to check out a site during the school holidays. A lot of us probably choose to have our holidays out side of the school holidays don't we. We know the busiest periods can be a tad manic and whether it be a hotel resort, or static caravan site you will have a difference in footfall during certain periods. If you want isolation and total peace then a caravan site will possibly never provide that, only a cabin in the wood but they can cost a small fortune.

Good luck GK. You might have good fun hiring a few before you commit after all they are quite expensive and you want to get a decent sized van. Site fees are quite high and you have to work out just how much usage you will actually get out of ownership.

I agree POGS there is a HUGE amount of snobbery when it comes to caravans. I loved my static and would have it back tomorrow in a heartbeat.

Having a tourer is great fun and means we can pretty much go where we like but it is quite hard work setting up and packing up especially with 3 children in tow. (pun intended)

Someone I know has just got one on the Northumberland coast and is very pleased with it - it looks fabulous.

But other friends bought one a few years ago (also in Northumberland) and then had trouble with the whole site changing hands, it going downhill, and extortionate fees being charged, and veiled threats being made, when they wanted to move the static somewhere nicer.

So do your homework GK and read the small print.

We had our static on the Northumberland coast janeainsworth it was a fabulous site. We sometimes go back for weekends in our tourer (they only have a tiny few touring plots) and I can't bring myself to walk around the beautiful site as I might see my old caravan and it would break my heart. Strangely enough when we had to give our house up at the same time and move to something smaller, it didn't bother me one jot !

Totally agree that the quality can vary enormously. Personally I don't think I would buy on a large site such as Haven.
Someone I know has one on a lovely tree lined site near the New Forest. Although peaceful it has all the facilities you could want.
I'm just a little DH doesn't agree that a static van is just what we need

They want you to leave the van empty for a spell annually because of their site licence - if you were there 365 days a year they could be in breach of the terms ( they would then become a permanently residential site and come under different regulations) I suppose the simplest thing to do is not to allow anyone on for a set time, and to do any site maintenance during that time (and maybe take their own holidays?)

Grannynet wants a bolt hole out of London so Northumberland is a long way. I live near the south coast and I see lovely small sites around Christchurch, Mudeford, area. But I am sure it is a matter of you get what you pay for.

Why buy? especially out of school holiday time you should be able to rent at a more reasonable price. Then you can go to different places and have none of the problems of owning. Also the summer school holidays mean lots of visitors and the traffic can be very busy.

Maybe stay in lots of different places and then you will find the right place.

Thanks everyone for chipping in with comments and advice.

nina neither does my OH think it is what we need but I tend to carry on regardless! Or, I say - "If you wanted us to have a static caravan, you would just go ahead and buy one, right?"

I have made a start, doing a lot of reading, posted on here, and I've booked a chalet in West Wittering, invited my OH - which usually has the effect that he realises I am serious about something . So I'll have a look around at other parks in the vicinity then.

aja that is true, every now and again I think why not just rent? But if I had my own place, then I could be impulsive and spontaneous about going there. I'm an impulsive, impatient and spontaneous type of person!

Quite a few of the parks have a "No same sex groups" policy and I thought that was discriminatory against gay people, until my daughter informed me (that I was a dummy) and that it means no hen or stag parties.

Grannyknot your last paragraph.

If you had your own place you would feel you HAD to go there.

With the Internet you can always be spontanious as there are lots of last minute deals.

But it is "swings and roundabouts"

We stayed in one a few years ago near Stratford Upon Avon. It was fantastic. The caravan itself was beautifully furnished with modern furniture (not those padded seat things), a dining table and chairs, a well equipped kitchen, two bedrooms, a shower room and even a walk in dressing room. There was a fireplace with a 'flame effect fire'. The River Avon rang through the park and we would hop on a little boat that took us into Stratford town centre. It is our plan when we win the Lottery to buy a static caravan in a pretty park somewhere

Grannyknot it was my need to be near the sea that started our caravaning career almost 30 years ago now. We live a few miles from the centre of England, so couldn't be further from the coast. Our jobs were very stressful and we both agreed getting away from home would be good for us. Luckily a friend kindly arranged for us to stay in their static caravan in Norfolk so we could see what it was like. It was a lovely van on a well kept non-residential site and it had some new and used vans for sale. Trouble was when we started looking around at vans on 'our' site and others, we found we weren't keen on the standard of what we could afford, and shocked at how much site fees cost. To cut a long story short we ended up buying a touring van and all these years later we have the best of both worlds - a touring van stored on a working farm with 3 fantastic award winning sites. For a small charge our van is pitched up ready for us when we arrive.

But I digress. We got such stick from family, friends and colleagues for becoming caravaners, but we didn't care because we had our bolt hole, plus our dogs loved the van. The snobbery was a bit of a shocker and the 'snobs' hadn't got a clue what a modern caravan was like - stereo types galore or what?! Most were surprised to hear even our very first van which was second hand and quite old, had a hot and cold running water, a loo, shower, gas fire and central heating (warm air), electricity and a decent TV aerial.

So you may need to grow a thick skin. Another point to think about is that if you do buy a static, bear in mind it's unlikely you will find a site where you can pitch your van indefinitely. Many sites don't allow vans over a certain age e.g. 10 years old. This is one reason older statics are so cheap. So when you're looking for a location, check out the rules. Non-residential sites close for a time each year, usually a month or two and often this includes December or January, so check this too in case you want to stay over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

I can certainly understand the suggestion of just paying to stay somewhere instead of buying. It's an excellent idea to save money or as way of trying things out. What we found is if we didn't plan well ahead, we didn't have as many breaks as we'd intended. At one point, for several years we booked our breaks for 12 months ahead at a time to make sure we went away. So many little things can crop up that stop you booking a break and we came to value our caravan breaks as something to look forward to that we rarely changed the dates. Of course, you can go in between as often as you like.

This might not go down well with some posters on here, but after a few years we chose an adults only site. Yes, adults can be noisy, but no children removes the chance of noisy children spoiling your break. There are rules on every site and an etiquette you will need to learn, but sometimes parents don't know (or care) about them and this can be a problem. Adults only sites usually don't even allow children to visit you. (***dons tin hat***). So although the appearance of a site will give you an idea of how well cared for it is (and what your fees help pay for), check out sites at different times like weekends and holidays. Check how close you would be to your neighbours as there is no minimum distance required.

Sorry for rambling on, but hopefully I'll given you some food for thought!

My son and his partner and their children stayed at a lovely caravan park on the outskirts of Newquay in June. My husband and I rented an apartment nearby because we wanted to take our dog, but we would have been quite happy to stay in the caravan park as it was very clean, well landscaped and not at all rowdy. Their caravan was extremely well equipped, with three bedrooms, two shower rooms/WCs, a spacious sitting room with French windows and a good kitchen with full size cooker - only £390 a week.

Obviously, if you were going to buy a static caravan you would check the site out properly at different times of the year. I do think, though, that if site fees are very high it might be better to just rent a caravan when you feel like a break. If you buy one you might feel duty bound to spend time there rather than have the freedom to holiday in different places. I would think it might be quite a tie once the novelty wears of.

I agree with the comment that there's a certain amount of, I think unwarranted, snobbery about caravan parks. Anti social people can be found anywhere - even in 5* hotels and luxury villas.

Wilma thank you and you are my kindred spirit.

Thank you to everyone else too lots of help and advice. [star] emoticon.

We overlook a static caravan park, and we are on the coast. We see people come and go, although the caravans directly behind our home are usually occupied by the same people throughout the season. The site itself is huge, but beautifully looked after by the site owners. We are not near enough to know of any 'nuisance neighbours', and nothing ever appears in the local press about problems. I think most of the caravans are privately owned and expensively rented out through an agent and unless you want to recoup some of the rental charges you pay, then you can keep your 'van and the ground around it as you want it. There are one or two very nice 'plots' to the caravans on this particular site. These caravans are vacated at the end of October and opened up again in March.
I do not know why there is this snobbery about caravanning, some of those on that particular site are really very well equipped, and probably a lot better than the permanent homes of some of the folk who holiday there.
We are used to people being a bit superior about our park home, a permanent 'caravan home', but we love it, so it is a question of choice

... hard to believe with all the rules and regulations, that there is no minimum distance required between caravans. So that will explain why you see row upon row of caravans jammed into some sites. Not very appealing! What I'd like to see are trees and landscaped grounds.

Will continue my relationship with Google re caravan sites today

The one at the rear of our home is called 'Riverside' if you are interested Granny

Thanks printmiss will check it out.

Grannyknot lots of sites have lovely landscaping and you'll probably be allowed to create a garden area around your van - again check this out. I really envy you starting out on this adventure!

You could always 'mix and match' so to speak. Buy a nice tourer which will then be your own, with your own things to hand and not a blank rental. Then you can decide where you would like to spend the summer for example, and take a long term pitch. Friends did that and took theirs to a lovely park with a river, woods, fishing lake, and all within 2 hours drive of home. That way you are not committed to long term site fees, and you can just come and go on impulse. Then next year, you can have your holiday home somewhere else. I know of people who 'park'their van in France, close to a ferry port, and thus have a French holiday home. I too dont understand the snobbery about caravans.