Pontins Holiday Parks in Administration

Loughton_Monkey

PasturesNew wrote: »

He bought the first site for £23,000 in 1946, he put up some money, borrowed from Barclays, then got investors for the other half.

Brings back memories mentioning that company. Now practically worthless I think. Very successful for a while, but eventually became virtually bankrupt.

Well, enough of Barclays. What happened to Pontins?

PasturesNew

I was looking at their price list for 1972, a 4-berth chalet cost about £36-38 for a week in August... which is just a bit more than double a shabby lone caravan in a farmer's field with a chemical toilet.

Using http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/ that £36 works out to be:
£354.00 using the retail price index
£354.00 using the GDP deflator
£598.00 using the average earnings
£706.00 using the per capita GDP
£778.00 using the share of GDP

the_flying_pig

Many of my childhood holidays were spent singing the crocodile song or whatever in Pontins camps. Good memories on balance but not very nice places even then.

I guess maybe it fell between two stools in the end, without the facilities [swimming pools, evening entertainment, & so on] of Butlins and also without the basic but 'good clean fun' vibe you get with simple campsite-type affairs.

wymondham

I'll miss the bacteria farms in the bathrooms!

tomterm8

PasturesNew wrote: »

I was looking at their price list for 1972, a 4-berth chalet cost about £36-38 for a week in August... which is just a bit more than double a shabby lone caravan in a farmer's field with a chemical toilet.

Using http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/ that £36 works out to be:
£354.00 using the retail price index
£354.00 using the GDP deflator
£598.00 using the average earnings
£706.00 using the per capita GDP
£778.00 using the share of GDP

Hm... cheap holidays for cheap people... the same crowd now goes to ibiza.

brixham

Spent most of my childhood in a Pontins camp as Mum worked there.
"A" Row were just sheds really but didn't think anything of it at the time.
Learnt to play table tennis with Chester Barnes, played snooker with Ray Reardon and played space invaders with Steve Davis.

Sir Fred would pop in by helicopter every now and again to great excitement.
Its now a housing estate and Debra Meadon wants to build on the "helicopter field".

Trying to count up all the Pontins camps that were in Torbay in the 70's and there must of been 12 or more. 2 camps that are left in Brixham that were Pontins at one time both have plans for housing.