UP, UP AND AWAY
But the biggest fear is that price rises over and above the cost of power are being sneaked through under cover of ‘all-inclusive fees’. Most sites - club and commercial - have moved to all-inclusive fees this year, but it’s The Caravan Club which has been getting it in the neck over price rises. Is this justified?
Not according to Emma Radley, The Caravan Club’s head of sites marketing. Emma told us that although all the Club’s pitches are now subject to an all-inclusive charge, there had been no blanket increase. She said: "It is not as simple as just adding £1.50 [the Club’s peak hook-up charge] to the pitch fee - some sites will have bigger increases than others. And there have been decreases, too." A big increase, she said, would be £2 on the pitch fee, per night.
What, then, about the 30 percent rise at the Club’s Commons Wood site in Hertfordshire, about which one of our readers emailed us? He claimed that the cost for a family of four, with hook-up in peak season, had shot up from £13.40 to £17.50 per night. Emma Radley confirms that these figures are correct, but points out that "this rise was not just due to the electricity charge. There has been work done at Commons Wood and it has moved up one band, so the prices have gone up".
Practical Motorhome readers have not been slow in highlighting other increases, such as 15 percent in Newport and in Cambridge, and 17 percent at Hunters Moon in Devon. Yet other readers, Dave Killey among them, say that they will change their plans as a result. "I am a pensioner," says Dave, "and have to live on a limited income. I am now looking at alternatives to Caravan Club sites when I go on holiday."
"We are aware of a backlash but the increases are not as bad as people think," says Radley. But couldn’t The Caravan Club find a way around the new regulations? "There is no way we could meter all pitches," she said. "And without metering, if we kept a hook-up charge we would have to prove that the £1.50 all went on electricity. We felt we couldn’t do that for every one of our 20,000 pitches and say we didn’t make a little bit of profit on some of them. That was our interpretation of the new regulations. If occupancy rates are affected we will do whatever we can, as quickly as we can, to satisfy our members."
Does that mean bringing rates down? "Possibly," says Radley, "but it is too early to judge. We will know by the end of March."

PAY UP OR OPT OUT
But there is a solution, as The Camping and Caravanning Club have demonstrated. By offering three different types of pitch, including one without electricity, it has given motorcaravanners the choice to opt out of a hook-up - and of paying additional charges.
Gary Fletcher, sites director for the Camping and Caravanning Club, explained: "Pitches where members require an electric hook-up and/or hardstanding will incur an extra, set cost for the services they use. There will be no general increase in site prices, and members will be secure in the knowledge that they get what they pay for."
One thing is for sure, though: the separate hook-up fee has disappeared for good. "Think of the new charges being similar to a hotel rate," says the British Holiday and Home Parks Association’s Ros Pritchard, "you pay a room rate that includes the use of the hotel’s swimming pool even though you may never use it." Pritchard thinks that only about 50 of the 2600 independent campsites which her association represents have opted for a separate hook-up charge which complies with Ofgem’s guidelines. "This approach will be to the customers’ advantage but it will be a nightmare for the park owners," she said. "If a customer wants to see an electricity bill they should be able to, but Ofgem’s formula for working it out is so complicated that it will be as clear as mud to them. All sites will have an all-inclusive rate in two years’ time but, for now, the customers are worse off. And you can thank Ofgem for that, not the parks."