We've just booked a week away in August and one of the most frustrating things we had to deal with was the 'standard pitch'. It seem to be an unwritten rule that campsite websites base everything on the ethereal 'standard pitch' but then invariably forget to say what they mean by a 'standard pitch'! Even the Camping and Caravaning Club don't seem to have a definition of what constitutes this mythical unit of measurement.

Here is the best I could find on their site:

Pitches are generally booked for one unit, which is either a car accompanied by a tent, caravan or trailer tent; or a solo motorhome. If you’re bringing an awning, pup tent, second car or pet please tell us when booking, so that we can let the site know and inform you of any relevant charges. Camp sites will allocate you a pitch to accommodate your unit’s total length and width, which we send them with details of any additional equipment you have. With extra equipment space on your pitch may be restricted, especially if your unit is big. In this case, or if you want to bring even more equipment, book sites where pitches exceed 100m2, or book a second pitch. We indicate in the site panel the maximum unit size that we guarantee can be fitted on or can access a pitch. Where a camp site has a limited number of larger pitches we can request one for anyone with a longer unit than the maximum indicated in the site panel.

It's not so important if you know that your tent is of such meager proportions that you can be pretty sure that it will fit into the confines of a 'standard pitch'. But when you have a 'roomy' family tent like we do (its footprint is 7.8m x 4m) then sometimes it does fit on a 'standard pitch' and sometimes we need a 'super pitch'. So given every campsite has a different definition of what constitutes a 'standard pitch' why oh why oh why do they not make it clear exactly how big their 'standard pitch'. What I want to see on the booking page of each and every campsite website is this:

Our Standard Pitch is Xm x Ym plus space for N car(s)

Where they set put in their own particular values for X, Y and N. (Sorry if that's a bit complicated and mathematical). Here's an example:

Our Standard Pitch is 8m x 6m plus space for 1 car.

Is that so hard?

While I'm on the subject what's the reasoning behind paying extra for gazebo's, pup tents and so on. Why does it make a difference if you put 5 little tents and a gazebo on the 'standard pitch' or one huge one? You're using the same space so why do you pay more?