Campsite Caravan Spacing Rules: The 6 Metre Rule Explained

Someone asks you this most weeks if you run any kind of touring site: how close together can I actually put these pitches? Squeeze them in and you get more bookings from the same field. Get it wrong and you have a fire risk, an unhappy inspector, or a complaint from a guest who feels like they are camping in someone else's porch. Campsite caravan spacing rules exist for a good reason, and once you understand where the numbers come from, laying out a site that is both safe and sensible gets a lot easier.

This is not the five van rule that limits how many units a CL or CS site can host at once, which I have covered elsewhere. This is about the physical gap between one caravan, motorhome or tent and the next, on any pitch you run.

Where the 6 metre rule actually comes from

The figure most owners have heard of is the 6 metre rule, and it comes from the Model Standards that local authorities use as the basis for touring caravan and camping site licence conditions. The standard wording most councils use is that no caravan or tent in separate family occupation should be less than 6 metres from any other unit, with at least 3 metres of that space kept clear so it can act as a firebreak. Vehicles and other kit can sit in the rest of the gap, but that clear 3 metre strip is what actually stops a fire on one pitch reaching the awning next door.

Awnings have their own figure worth knowing. Where a pitch has an awning attached, the rule most licences apply is that no part of the awning should come within 3 metres of the neighbouring caravan. It is easy to forget when a guest puts up a bigger awning than the one they had last year, so it is worth having a way to flag pitches where this keeps happening.

Static and holiday caravans use a different number

If you also run any static holiday accommodation alongside touring pitches, do not assume the same 6 metres applies automatically. The Model Standards for holiday caravan sites set a slightly different baseline: a minimum of 5 metres between aluminium clad statics, tightening to 3.5 metres at the corners, but rising to 6 metres wherever plywood or similarly clad units are involved, or where aluminium and plywood units sit next to each other. Mix permanent residential units in with holiday statics and the distance goes back up to 6 metres as well.

It is a fiddly set of numbers, and it exists because different cladding materials burn and spread heat differently. The practical takeaway is simple even if the detail is not: check which standard applies to each part of your site rather than assuming one figure covers everything you own.

What this means if you run a CL or CS site

Certificated Locations and Certificated Sites are exempt from needing a full site licence, which is exactly why the five unit and five van rules exist in the first place. That exemption is about numbers, not about fire safety. The Caravan and Motorhome Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club still expect their CL and CS holders to keep sensible separation between units, and most insurers will ask about it too if you ever need to make a claim.

In practice this means the same 6 metre thinking is worth applying even though nobody is going to turn up with a tape measure and a licence to enforce it. If you are new to running a site, our guides to starting a CL site and starting a CS site cover the wider setup, and it is worth reading alongside our breakdown of the five van rule or the five unit rule so you are clear on the difference between how many units you can host and how far apart they need to be.

Working out how many pitches actually fit

Spacing rules feed directly into how many pitches a field can hold, which matters just as much as the legal minimum. Touring site density guidance generally caps things at around 75 units per hectare, or roughly 30 per acre, calculated on the useable area rather than the whole plot including tracks, hedgerows and the bit that floods every winter.

A few things worth working through before you finalise a layout:

• Measure the useable area separately from the total. Access roads, drainage margins, the honesty shop and any building set back all reduce the space you can actually pitch on.
• Plan for the biggest units you expect to host, not the average. A field that comfortably fits six metre gaps between small tents can feel cramped once a large motorhome with a full awning turns up.
• Leave room for vehicles as well as the unit itself. A car parked beside a caravan eats into the clear space just as much as a second tent would.
• Mark pitch boundaries clearly. Vague grass pitches with no markers are the single biggest reason guests end up closer together than they should be, usually without realising it.

Our parks and pitches tools let you set up your site as it actually is, with pitch sizes, types and any spacing notes recorded against each one, so a new team member checking someone in is not guessing where the boundary sits.

Where owners usually get caught out

A few patterns come up again and again when spacing goes wrong on a real site:

• Squeezing in an extra pitch during a busy weekend. It feels harmless to take one more booking on August bank holiday, but if it breaches your minimum spacing you are trading a small amount of extra income for a real fire and liability risk.
• Guests self policing their own gaps. Awnings creep wider every year and gazebos appear that were never part of the original booking. Nobody measures until something goes wrong.
• Overlooking spacing in a written risk assessment. If your risk assessment does not mention pitch separation at all, that is usually a sign it was written once and never properly revisited.
• Treating hedges and fences as free space. A pitch backing directly onto a boundary hedge with no gap is still subject to the same separation rules from the unit next to it, hedge or no hedge.

None of this is about box ticking for its own sake. A fire that spreads between two units on a packed August weekend is the kind of thing that ends up in the local paper, and it is exactly the scenario the 6 metre rule was written to prevent. Our campsite fire safety guide covers the wider picture beyond spacing alone, including extinguishers, fire points and evacuation routes.

Putting it into a layout you can actually run

Knowing the numbers is one thing. Running a site where every pitch reliably keeps to them, season after season and guest after guest, is another. That is where having your pitch layout properly recorded rather than remembered pays off. If you can see at a glance which pitches are hardstanding, which are grass, what size unit each one takes and where the boundaries actually fall, spotting a booking that would put two units too close together becomes obvious rather than something you catch after the guest has already arrived and started levelling their caravan.

If you are still running your booking diary from a spreadsheet or a paper calendar, this is one of the quieter benefits of moving to proper booking software: the pitch layout and the booking calendar live in the same place, so a booking that would breach your own spacing rules is far easier to catch before it happens rather than after.

The takeaway

Campsite caravan spacing rules are not just red tape. The 6 metre figure most owners have heard of, and the 3 metre clear space inside it, exist to stop a fire on one pitch becoming a fire on the next one over. Touring pitches, static caravans and awnings each have slightly different numbers attached, so it is worth checking which one applies to each part of your site rather than assuming one figure covers everything. Get your layout right once, record it properly, and it stops being something you have to think about every time a booking comes in. CampSuite is free to get started with for CL and CS sites, no card needed, and it takes about fifteen minutes to set up your pitches properly.