Does Your Campsite Need Electrical Safety Testing?

Every so often an owner asks me some version of the same question. Does my site actually need electrical safety testing, or is that just something big holiday parks worry about? The honest answer is that if you supply mains electricity to a pitch, whether that's one hookup bollard on a single CL or forty serviced pitches on a touring park, you have a legal duty to keep that supply safe. It doesn't matter how small the site is. This guide walks through what an EICR actually is, how often you need one, what an inspector looks at, and what happens if you let it slide.

What Electrical Safety Testing Actually Means

The formal name for the inspection most campsite owners need is an Electrical Installation Condition Report, usually shortened to EICR. It's carried out by a qualified electrician who checks the fixed electrical installation on your site, meaning the wiring, distribution boards, hookup posts and RCDs, rather than any portable appliance a guest brings with them. The electrician tests for things like earthing faults, overloaded circuits, damaged cabling and outdated components that no longer meet current wiring regulations, then issues a report that either passes the installation, flags observations, or requires urgent remedial work before it's signed off as safe.

This sits under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, which apply to any business supplying electricity, and it overlaps with your general duties under health and safety law to keep the site safe for staff and visitors. If your site is a CL or CS, the Caravan and Motorhome Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club both expect a valid EICR as part of your ongoing site agreement, and most public liability insurers will ask to see one if you ever need to make a claim connected to an electrical incident.

It's worth being clear about what this isn't. Portable Appliance Testing, or PAT testing, covers movable electrical items you own, things like kettles, fridges and power tools in a shop or reception. If you don't supply any of your own portable equipment for guest use, PAT testing may not apply to you at all. The EICR, on the other hand, applies to almost every UK site with mains hookups.

How Often You Actually Need One

For most campsites, an EICR is required every three years, though some insurers and club agreements specify a shorter cycle for larger sites with heavier usage. A few things push that timeline forward rather than leaving it on autopilot:

• New hookup points or a rewired supply. Any significant electrical work should be followed by an inspection of that work before it goes live.
• A change of electricity supplier or a new distribution board. Worth flagging to your electrician even outside your normal cycle.
• Storm damage or flooding. Water ingress around outdoor sockets and bollards is one of the most common causes of an unsafe installation on a rural site, and it's not always visible.
• A change of ownership. If you've bought an existing site, don't assume the previous owner's EICR is current or that it covers work done since it was issued.

Set a reminder well ahead of the expiry date on your current certificate rather than waiting for a club renewal or an insurance review to catch you out. Booking an electrician in the quiet shoulder months, rather than scrambling in April when everyone else on their books wants the same thing, also tends to be cheaper and faster.

What an Inspector Actually Looks At

Walking a site with an electrician for the first time is useful even if you're not technically minded, because it shows you exactly where the risk sits. On a typical campsite inspection, expect them to check:

• Every hookup bollard and post. Cracked casings, loose sockets and signs of water getting in are the most common faults found on outdoor pitches.
• RCD protection. Residual current devices are what trip a circuit if there's a fault, and they're the single most important piece of protection between a damaged cable and a serious shock.
• Cable runs and armoured cabling. Especially anything buried or run along fence lines, where years of mowing, digging or vehicle movement can cause damage nobody's noticed.
• The main distribution board. Age, capacity and whether it's rated for the number of pitches actually drawing power from it, particularly if you've added pitches since it was installed.
• Any static caravans, pods or amenity buildings on a supply you manage. These often get missed because owners think of them as separate from the pitch electrics, but if you're the one supplying the power, they're in scope.

If your site has grown over the years, added pitches one at a time, or had hookups installed by more than one contractor, this is often where an inspector finds the most to flag. It's not a sign you've done anything wrong. It's exactly why the inspection exists.

What Happens If You Skip It

Beyond the obvious safety risk, there are real practical consequences to letting testing lapse. An insurer can refuse a claim outright if an electrical fire or shock incident happened on an installation with no current EICR, and that gap can wipe out cover you've paid for over years without ever using. Our guide to campsite insurance in the UK covers how much weight insurers put on compliance paperwork when a claim actually lands on their desk.

If you hold a CL or CS certificate, an expired or missing EICR can also put your certification itself at risk, since both clubs treat basic safety compliance as a condition of hosting under their scheme rather than a nice to have. And if the Health and Safety Executive ever investigates an incident on your site, the first document they'll ask for is your current test certificate. Not having one turns a manageable conversation into a much harder one.

Getting Ready for an Inspection

A bit of preparation makes the day itself quicker and cheaper, since the electrician spends less time hunting for access and more time actually testing.

• Clear access to every hookup post, distribution board and any outbuilding with a supply.
• Dig out your last EICR, plus any records of electrical work done since, even informal ones.
• Make a note of any sockets, bollards or lights that guests have mentioned playing up, however minor it seemed at the time.
• Check for anything obviously damaged yourself first, cracked bollard casings, exposed cable, or a socket that feels loose, so you're not paying an electrician to find what you already knew about.
• Book the inspection outside your peak season if you can, so any remedial work doesn't disrupt guests mid stay.

When you're choosing who to use, look for an electrician registered with a recognised scheme such as NICEIC or NAPIT, and ask specifically whether they've worked on outdoor and caravan site installations before. Domestic and commercial installations behave differently to a field full of hookup posts exposed to weather, and it shows in the quality of the report you get back.

Keeping the Paperwork Where You Can Find It

The other half of staying compliant is simply not losing the certificate once you have it. Sites that run everything through a spreadsheet, a filing cabinet and a folder of emails tend to be the ones scrambling to find a three year old EICR when a club inspector or insurer asks for it unexpectedly. Keeping your pitch and site records alongside your compliance documents in one place means you can pull up the certificate, the date it's due for renewal, and any notes from the last inspection in seconds rather than digging through old emails. It's a small thing until the one day it really isn't.

The Bottom Line

Electrical safety testing isn't paperwork for its own sake. Hookup posts sit outside all year, take a battering from weather, mowers and constant guest use, and are exactly the kind of installation that develops faults slowly and invisibly. A current EICR, renewed on a sensible cycle rather than an emergency one, protects your guests, protects your insurance cover, and protects your certification if you run a CL or CS. Get an electrician who knows campsites, book them before your certificate lapses, and keep the report somewhere you can actually find it again.

If you're managing pitch records, compliance dates and guest bookings across three different systems that don't talk to each other, that's exactly the kind of mess CampSuite® is built to tidy up. Sign up for CampSuite's free plan and get your site records, pitches and important dates organised properly in about 15 minutes, free for CL and CS sites, no card required.