Grizedale Forest

Cumbria
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Greater Manchester
Lancashire
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Winks
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Grizedale Forest

Post by Winks »

Email sent to Forestry England after talking to my son who spent a day there with his kids on the bikes.

Good Afternoon

I would like to know why parking charges for Grizedale are so high compared to Forrestry Scotland which has a much larger and remote estate?

I recently spent a week touring in my motorhome in Dumfries and Galloway and the full day charge for all the carparks where charges apply is £3 whilst Grizedale is an eye watering £8. Furthermore your Scottish counterparts have a scheme in place where overnight parking and occupancy of motorhomes is £6 from 18.00 to 09.00 at designated sites. This is the second year of the scheme and it has been well received and offers some extra security for the forestry by deterring ‘’wild’’ or ‘’dirty’’ camping by people not in self contained units.

I used to camp at Grizedale hall years ago and think the lack of facilities for campers will inevitably bring the problems around ‘’wild camping’’.


Regards

Harold Windle


Don't know if there is already some contact with the forestry but I thought I'd have ago anyhow.
Winks
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Re: Grizedale Forest

Post by Winks »

Had a reply from a manager at Grizedale. Is it worth sending him the Campra links?

England runs independently and has no relationship with Scotland who set their own pricing policies and so I have no idea what the pricing policy is for Scotland.

With regard to our policies our recreational offer at visitor centres is regarded by Treasury as a trading activity and as such does not receive any financial support from Government. Because of this the facilities have to be financially self-sufficient and raise sufficient funds to pay for their maintenance and upkeep. To ensure this is achieved we are challenged annually by our National leads with ensuring that the returns from car parking are as good and they can be with the aim of raising revenue that can be reinvested in the facilities that visitor can enjoy.

How that translates into a local charging policy is that our approach is to set our charges as close to the local market rate as we can. To do this we research what our competitors in the area are charging comparative to the site offer that is available. The result of this is that we sit pretty much in the middle of the range, more expensive that the local district council rates, similar to the Lake District National Park and cheaper than the National Trust.

Some of the providers mentioned charge against fixed periods. We felt a fairer option was to adopt a pay on exit system as it if fairer with users only paying for what they use so an hours stay is only £2.20 up to the full day rate of £8.

With regard to your point on camping there is now more provision than was the case when the Grizedale Hall campsite was open. In 2008 The Camping and Caravanning Club lease had come to an end and we took the decision to support one of our agricultural tenants in a farm diversification scheme and he now runs the Bowkerstead camp site which has greater capacity than the former campsite at Grizedale.

I hope that I have fully answered your queries but feel free to get in touch if you require any further clarification.

Regards
Dave Lowe
Recreation and Business Manager Grizedale
Steve
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Re: Grizedale Forest

Post by Steve »

I would reply explaining what an Aire is.
https://campra.org.uk/download/do-i-ope ... -campsite/
Explaining how allowing overnight parking for self contained motorcaravans (Alres) will provide an additional year round revenue stream that as already been recognise by FLS , report on trial attached:
And send him the report
Steve - CAMpRA Leadership Team
Winks
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Re: Grizedale Forest

Post by Winks »

Thanks for that Steve, I have sent this off just now.

Good Afternoon David

Thank you for your reply which I have read through a few times and can see your rationale with regard to parking charges.

The one point which has me somewhat stumped however is the use of the word competitors when applied to local authority and national park sites. In my view Grizedale and the other forest areas are unique in that the target customers are more likely given to walking and cycling than the shopping and ice cream side of the Lake District. However, there is a whole group of potential visitors who are overlooked in this strategy and they are motorhome owners/users.

You mention Bowkersteads yet, as far as I am aware, units of any more than VW camper size are not encouraged because of the grass only pitches and the obvious problems this causes largely front wheel drive and heavier vehicles.

Here I must declare an interest. I am casually involved with an organisation called CAMpRA.org which is striving, with reasonable success so far, to establish a nationwide network of facilities for the ever growing recreational motorhome sector. Scotland has so far lead the way in establishing overnight parking and some service points for black and grey waste disposal and fresh water but other places are seeing the benefit of tapping into this burgeoning sector which is largely composed of older couples who tour the year round and spend locally where a quality offering is made.

This is not camping but just a provision of the above mentioned parking and/or services, which may already exist in some places and can be very cheap to put in place. Your counterparts in Scotland have run a scheme during 2020/21 and this has been well accepted and used by myself and others. There are gains to be had for both sides in this type of scheme. We benefit from access to peaceful and remote places to park up overnight and the providers gain an income stream from what would be otherwise unused, and unpaid for overnight parking. There is also some benefit from having eyes and ears on the estate overnight without staffing costs.

I will attach two .pdf files which you may find interesting. Please take some time to have a look at them. You can gain direct access to the leadership of the CAMpRA organisation from the web page.

Thank you for your time.

Regards

Harold Windle

Hopefully we'll get a positive response
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Re: Grizedale Forest

Post by Steve »

Fingers crossed, this is a very sensible reply
Steve - CAMpRA Leadership Team
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