VERY few people take the middle ground when it comes to caravans - they either love them or loathe them.

Depending on your point of view they are either a go-anywhere passport to happy holiday freedom or lumbering menaces second only to tractors when it comes to holding up traffic.

So the following news could be either heartening or dismaying: the caravan is enjoying an upsurge in popularity as never before.

The Caravan Club has enjoyed record recruitment levels during the first half of 2002 and is now on target to enrol almost 50,000 new members during the year, exceeding all previous membership figures.

The number visiting the club's UK sites is also well up on last year, providing the club with an extra £500,000.

Last night, for example, there was only one empty spot to be found at the 63-pitch site at Hardgill House, Gilling West, near Richmond.

Relief manager Marie Jackson said: "It is noticeably up. We're only temporarily here but we can see it is very busy."

She said the picture was the same at other sites where she had acted as relief, at Thirsk and Old Hartley, near Whitley Bridge.

The Caravan Club's director general, Trevor Watson, insisted the jump in popularity was good news.

"More members and higher UK site occupancy means more spending throughout the regions and a boost for the country's economy," he said.

Both the caravan and motor caravan industries have benefited from the upsurge, with robust sales of both new and used models.

Alan Bishop, director general of the industry's representative body, the National Caravan Council, said: "Sales figures are up across all sectors of the industry and business is booming.

"The Caravan Club's campaign earlier this year, coupled with the current trends in consumer spending, seem to be generating excellent results throughout the caravan industry."

117 years of caravanning

* The first purpose-built caravan, the Wanderer, was made in Bristol in 1885. It still exists and is owned by the Caravan Club.

* Thirty two per cent of present Caravan Club members take their pets on holiday with them, 47 per cent are two-car families and 39 per cent are retired.

* Caravanning accounts for 17 per cent of all UK holidays.

* Ray Baumann, from Perth, Western Australia, holds the world record for jumping the longest distance in a car towing a caravan. He travelled 157ft 6in from a 7ft 6in ramp.

* Almost 50 per cent of Japanese caravanners are aged between 30 and 40