I can't see NT/EH or other touristy organisations keeping permanent bookings. Members can book places at fairly low risk and not go if weather or other restrictions get in the way, which could leave out "pay-on-the-day" customers. It also takes up staff time to manage/monitor too. I suppose there could be orgnaisations which keep the infrastructure in place for summer holidays or bank holiday weekends if they have sites that normally get overwhelmed, but I think they'll drop it when they can.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Booking for Museums, Galleries, Recycling Centres etc
- Thread starter Cymroglan
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Pakenhamtrain
Member
We have to "reserve" a seat if you want to go to the football. It's actually effecting crowd numbers because people would rather just rock up scanning thier membership card and not have to stuff about with e-tickets.
Nicholas Lewis
Established Member
Free for all at our recycling centre and it causes huge traffic jams in the area as well as taking upto 30 mins before you get the unloading area. They have only 2/3rd bays open, a one way system and only one person at each of the recycling lorry containers at a time and oh and you have to wear a mask. So much for outside being safer nett impact is what used to be 10-15 round trip can now be over an hour. Id actually like them to have a booking system!
Isn't, uhhh, that the entire point?
Booking to go to the tip is all very well until you find out they're fully booked for the next fortnight.
They should have sufficient capacity to be honest. No wonder there's so much fly tipping.
bramling
Veteran Member
Chaos at ours, queues of several hours at times apparently, and closing by the early afternoon.
Meanwhile, needless to say fly-tipping is through the roof.
Don’t quite get why there’s been such an issue with the tips.
Yeah - I cycle a lot on rural roads. Fly tipping has increased hugely over the last year.
It is horrible but probably considered by some as another small price worth paying to 'save the NHS'
They've been much busier than normal as people cocooned at home have been having big clear outs. At the same time the people in charge of the tips have shut many of the skips to implement social distancing, reduced opening hours because of absence etc.
Kite159
Veteran Member
A problem I tend to have with my local tip, go onto the website to book an appointment and find there are non available at the times you can realistically go (i.e. late evening/weekends). You need to be quick to try and book when they get released 7 days in advance, before the furlough army bulk books to take in a sack of grass cuttings
Pakenhamtrain
Member
Crowds are capped at 75 percent. Crowds are lower than what they've been expecting.
People are used to just being able to rock up and buying a ticket/scanning in with thier memberships. But at the moment they have to log in to ticketek/ticketmaster and reserve thier spot. If you want to sit with friends or family you need thier barcode numbers and get them at a "Pre sale". If you want to sit next to each other and they support different teams you have to wait the general public gets them.
For instance in round 1 I went to Melbourne vs Fremantle. I'm an AFL member so that gives me access to the AFL reserve at the MCG.
For a low drawing game like Melbourne vs Fremantle The AFL reserve is mostly General Admission on M/P/Q Levels. I can just scan my membership card and sit anywhere.
Last edited:
ExRes
Established Member
Over the last six weeks or so I've booked 4 trips to the local tip due to a house move clear out and no opportunity to donate anything to charities, on each booking I've had loads of dates and times available and have booked without a problem of any description, what a delight! no massive queues or scrums at the individual skips, the only downside is that they've had an attitude of "chuck it all in general waste" when it comes to things like paint, that's not good
I remember in September last year to Glasgow, if I wanted to visit a museum I would have to pre-book a slot, usually when I am away I pop into those places as a spare of a moment than I want too. I would hope booking ahead can be dropped.
py_megapixel
Established Member
Pre booking doesn't bother me for things I plan in advance anyway, as long as the time required in advance is sufficiently short. For example, leisure centres, I am more than happy to pre-book for - in fact, I prefer it as i can be guaranteed the swimming pool and changing areas won't be crowded.
I don't like mandatory pre-booking for things such as libraries, museums, or anything else that I am likely to want to visit on impulse.
I don't like mandatory pre-booking for things such as libraries, museums, or anything else that I am likely to want to visit on impulse.
DelayRepay
Established Member
- Joined
- 21 May 2011
- Messages
- 2,929
I have a different problem. I'd got a booking for yesterday afternoon, but I could not make it due to the garage taking longer than expected to change my brake disks.
Normally this would not be a problem, I would just go today instead. But now I cannot get another weekend booking until the weekend after next, so the pile of waste will have to go back into my garage until then. I suspect that, like my booking, a number of people booked in today won't turn up for whatever reason.
Meanwhile, my garden waste bin wasn't emptied again this week. The reason, say the council, is higher than expected volumes of garden waste. They still seem not to have twigged that this is because they've made it quite difficult to use the tip, so people are putting more waste in the bins - in our street neighbours are using each others' garden waste bins if someone's got a lot of waste. That never happened before. And as gardening is quite weather dependent, it's hard to know exactly when you'll need a tip slot two weeks in advance. We've also had weeks where other types of waste have not been collected due to 'high volumes' - I suspect people are breaking waste down and squashing it into the other bins. And there has been an explosion of fly tipping on the local country lanes.
All in all, I wish the tips would go back to how they were before.
I have found the NT booking system a pain as they close bookings in the afternoon for the next day. My wife has a condition and here ability to walk varies greatly so we tend to like to go places at the last minute if she feels up to it. Also for anywhere popular they seem to fill up for the whole week on Friday morning -I'm pretty sure that members book up in case they feel like going and then don't always bother to turn up. I think this is because they print the lists out for the whole day. Some places seem to have space on the day but there is no way of finding out before making the journey.
At least EH seem to have a live system that allows last minute bookings and changes.
Trying to organise a week's holiday in May is going to be a pain, but the cottage is booked!
At least EH seem to have a live system that allows last minute bookings and changes.
Trying to organise a week's holiday in May is going to be a pain, but the cottage is booked!
wireforever
Member
- Joined
- 7 Feb 2019
- Messages
- 125
The local tips in our council area ask for ID and proof of address now it is no wonder skip hire firms are doing well might need to order another hippo bag or start filling the black bin with rubbish from the garage clear out
pdq
Member
- Joined
- 7 Oct 2010
- Messages
- 803
Our LA has never gone down the route of booking to use the tip. When they first reopened last year with only every other skip in use they did have a useful website gadget that showed the waiting time at each centre; this was a useful deterrent to stop the queues getting unmanageable. That is now withdrawn though so it's pot luck: a few weeks ago I went on a Sat mid-afternoon and got in within 20 mins; then went on a Friday morning and had to queue for almost an hour. In that instance I would have much preferred a booking system.
I can't really work out why the delays are there now: I don't see that the distancing measures are making visits longer. and capacity seemed almost normal, certainly 80%.
I can't really work out why the delays are there now: I don't see that the distancing measures are making visits longer. and capacity seemed almost normal, certainly 80%.
My local tip in Cardiff seems well organised in terms of getting a slot and lack of queue when arriving on site. However, I'd echo the view that fly tipping has gone through the roof since last summer.
Well, we now know that the end of most restrictions has been confirmed for 19th July. I’ve monitored the websites and social media feeds of my favourite galleries and museums. It’s been quiet day, but London’s Royal Academy eventually got in first, announcing that they will be releasing a few more tickets for the David Hockney exhibition (which had sold out) as well as for some other events. personally I think this is a breathtakingly timid response. They have the nerve to still be begging for financial help from supporters while not seizing the opportunity to make money by welcoming ‘walk up’ visits!
By way of contrast the Ventnor fringe festival is making full use of the new freedoms available and good luck to them I say! Loads more tickets available, live music etc!
It looks to me as though the big national institutions which can rely on government support or big business sponsorship will opt for the quiet life while smaller venues & events make creative use of the new freedoms?
By way of contrast the Ventnor fringe festival is making full use of the new freedoms available and good luck to them I say! Loads more tickets available, live music etc!
It looks to me as though the big national institutions which can rely on government support or big business sponsorship will opt for the quiet life while smaller venues & events make creative use of the new freedoms?
Hampshire are keeping the booking system for the tips, but tripling the slots available. I think they are also dropping the one visit per week rule. They've done some research and found that people preferred booking to having to deal with the hour+ queues there used to be.
Across the border, Wiltshire return to the open access system from 19th. Works for me, I'll go to a Wiltshire tip if I need to go at short notice, and book Hampshire if I don't want to queue.
Across the border, Wiltshire return to the open access system from 19th. Works for me, I'll go to a Wiltshire tip if I need to go at short notice, and book Hampshire if I don't want to queue.
DelayRepay
Established Member
- Joined
- 21 May 2011
- Messages
- 2,929
My area are keeping bookings. They say it is an effective way of stopping businesses and residents of other areas using our tips to dispose of their waste.
I'm not sure how - you have to give an address to book but I have never had my details checked. The very first time the guy ticked my car registration number off a list but every visit since then there hasn't even been anyone on the entrance checking people actually have bookings. They prefer to sit in their hut drinking tea.
johnnychips
Established Member
Just a shout out for Doncaster MBC, whose refuse site operatives have acted proportionally and politely during all this stuff, without a booking system.
Kite159
Veteran Member
Just beware with some Wiltshire dumps they are asking for proof of address that you are indeed a Wiltshire resident (coming from my brother who has been to Amesbury a couple times in the last month).
Most popular times for the dumps pre Covid was middle of the day at weekends at summer time.
Eyersey468
Established Member
- Joined
- 14 Sep 2018
- Messages
- 2,163
There's talk of East Riding of Yorkshire tips having some kind of pass system which you can only get if you live in East Yorkshire
Tracked
Established Member
They also dropped the booking system (via Eventbrite) for their new Library and Museum last Friday, they'd been open several weeks on a pre-booked only basis and I was waiting for that too end before going, haven't had time to have a look round it so far this week but they've got a couple of Doncaster-built steam engines in there
[edit] think they dropped the pre-booking system for the library part a few days earlier than last Friday, but kept it on for the Museum
Snow1964
Established Member
Wiltshire Council website says booking system for household recycling centres ends Monday 19th, after that can just turn up
So appears end of restrictions means end of pre booking
I do like it when end means not we going to continue with annoying booking system when others have dropped theirs
www.wiltshire.gov.uk
So appears end of restrictions means end of pre booking
I do like it when end means not we going to continue with annoying booking system when others have dropped theirs
You no longer need to book to visit a household recycling centre - Wiltshire Council
Book a visit to a household recycling centre
www.wiltshire.gov.uk
My in laws live in Salisbury, so I have a copy of their council tax bill for this purpose. If I go to a Wiltshire tip, I'll be going with their rubbish
Kite159
Veteran Member
My in laws live in Salisbury, so I have a copy of their council tax bill for this purpose. If I go to a Wiltshire tip, I'll be going with their rubbish
Good idea
jamesst
Member
I'll add Wirral to that, spot on.
py_megapixel
Established Member
There's a couple of companies that operate the council-owned leisure centres in my area. Neither has advertised any plans to get rid of the booking system. As much as I like the pool being emptier than usual, I do find the booking in advance to be a bit of a pain especially considering they won't refund you if you book a time and then can't make it.
- Status