Reviews of Church Farm Campsite

Management response: We were obviously distressed to read some of the reviews about Church Farm Ardeley and thought it best to address the comments. Though unpleasant to read we don't get things right every time and value constructive feedback.

We are always more than happy to answer any queries direct so we can try to put things right. Please just email Emma or Tim at info@churchfarmardeley.co.uk.

Unsupervised bonfire ~ there is always a member of the farm team around all evening, however to make identification of staff easier we now wear high vis jackets. Parents are expected to supervise their children the entire time they are on the farm details of which is handed out in the camping notes on arrival, on signage around the farm and on the website) we do expect this to include not letting your child play with or near the fire. Sadly some parents don't seem to care what their children do. However, we have taken on board the comments and now a metal fence surrounds the bonfire so no one can get near to it.

Pitching your tent a safe distance from the bonfire ~ we are happy to help anyone with advice on how far is a safe distance to pitch a tent from the bonfire and on busy weekends we now have someone on hand to help with such enquiries.

Free Activities ~ The activities with are free at the farm are a small woodland area, a play park in the village, an indoor play room, activity sheets, walking around the whole farm and seeing the animal. Car parkingis also free. The face painter was a local girl just starting up her business and having a go at one of our events. Both this and feeding the animals is optional.

The Loos ~ Yes we grossly underestimated the amount of compost loos we needed on the busy weekend, which is totally our fault. The loos were checked but evidentially not enough- this has been taken on board and the toilets are now being checked three times a day- swept, toilet tissue top up etc. We have also made more loos so this problem should not occur again. We are really sorry about this and hopefully have rectified the situation for future events.

Yes the main loos are 15 minute walk from the furthest point on the farm.

Shelter Marquee ~ we do tend to only put up a shelter marquee if the weather is due to be really bad, rain being more of a concern rather than sunshine especially when the shelter is only used in the evening and primarily for the musicians. Sorry if you were misled. We will amend our website to reflect this.

Signposting to play area ~ comments noted and we will put up more signage to make it clearer for visitors

The Shower ~ Yes the shower is very basic and I think the advice is right about taking it out of use and just saying we don't have one. We are working on improving this shower unit, retiling, plumbing etc which will hopefully happen soon. We also wish to build a proper shower block, though estimates are in the £1000s..

Rubbish ~ We ask that campers leave the farm as they find it, ie rubbish free and that they simply take their rubbish home with them rather than dumping it with us to dispose of (it costs us £200 a skip to get rid of rubbish).

Sadly we pick up no end of rubbish, broken glass, food packaging and other undesirables as mentioned in these posts. This weekend our neighbour had two skips loads of rubbish dumped on his drive and another villager delivered a sack of rubbish he had picked up from the surrounding lanes.

Ay advice on how to manage the rubbish issue would be gratefully received, because it is really upsetting having other peoples mess left at what is our home.

Other observations ~ "The compost toilets had messages inside put there by the farm remarking on Tesco & Subway being very bad for the environment (selling cheap products that are bad / 'expensive' for the environment), however my wife paid for several lucky dip goes for our children from the farm shop and their prizes were plastic tat toys, how hypocritical!"

The plastic toys in the lucky dip were donated to Rural Care which provides training and work experience for people with learning disabilities and/or mental health issues at the farm http://churchfarmardeley.co.uk/education-a-care/rural-care.html). The co-farmers attending Rural Care wrapped the toys and the money raised goes to help Rural Care buy wheelbarrows, gloves and other useful item for the co-farmers. We have made a sign to explain this to customer so there can be no future misunderstanding.

"The farm shop is way overpriced nearly £2 for 100g bar of chocolate, £1 for a 30g bar.." The Divine bars of chocolate which we sell in the shop costs £1.95 and one £1.87 ( we charge the RRP). The same bar is available at Tesco for £2.00 and Sainsburys £1.99 according to My Supermarket. The smaller Montezuma's chocolate bars are 3p less direct from the Montezuma's on-line shop than we charge in our shop. There are also cheaper sweet options also available in the shop.

We try to be as competitive as possible, price checking our meats, eggs, fruit and veg to supermarket finest and organic brands and price match when we can.

Prices for the campfire weekends ~The prices on the campfire weekends include the cost of the bonfire, making it + the musicians playing. It is only the Saturday night when the price is higher. We light the fire and start the music earlier now to accommodate the younger ones.

It would be difficult to manage a two tier rate on that night, as the comment on the review highlights there is nothing to stop people paying the lower rate and going along anyway, which would be unfair to those who have paid the higher rate.

On the weekend of the 20th the other "field full of tents" was a private booking.

We do check our camping rates against other sites and feel we have pitched our prices competitively, if not slightly cheaper than other sites to reflect the limited facilities on site (ie showers, loos and electrical hook up).

Private Events & Vehicle Restrictions ~ good point about vehicle restrictions for private parties, we will certainly look at putting something in place.

Sadly that weekend there were some really horrible people who left litter everywhere, drove their cars around at night and then scarpered first thing in the morning. We got the number plate but no luck in finding who they were. Since then we have put security on for the camp under the stars nights, charge a deposit when people check in so that if any complaints are received about rubbish, noise etc they can be dealt with and refunds given to people who are disturbed. Our personal mobile number is also handed out on the camping guidelines when people check in and says to call us if there are problems and we will come up.

Thank you for your feedback and we are constantly trying to improve.

Kind Regards

Alex