Full review

The Bailey Pursuit 560-5 has one of the best features you’ll find in any family caravan. That’s the solid wooden door which divides the rear bedroom-lounge area from the rest of the caravan. Pleated partitions can’t touch the effectiveness of wood in forming a barrier to light and, to a great extent, sound, too. So when you put the kids to bed, you can close the door and, provided that television, music and conversation sounds in the front of the caravan are subdued, you can be pretty sure sleep will happen.

This twin-lounge layout, with the shower room in the centre, on the offside, was once popular; it appeared in many manufacturers’ ranges. But it fell out of fashion. So it’s great to see it now, in a budget range.

The 560, perhaps more than the other five caravans in Bailey’s lightweight range, surely embodies the thinking behind the Pursuit range, which is designed to attract new people into caravanning. For a family who is thinking of progressing from tenting into something that will enable them to enjoy the outdoor holiday lifestyle all year instead of only in summer weather, the 560-5 is an appealing and practical new-buy option.

So what do you get for your £14,745? You get a centrally heated caravan (it has the Truma Combi water and space heater system which delivers 2kW when used on gas and 1.8kW on electricity), a kitchen containing a good-sized fridge and oven-grill, and a washroom that has a separate shower.
 

Showering

In the era when this twin-lounge layout first became popular, it was rare to find one with a separate, domestic-style shower. Now, that’s the norm in caravans, and the 560’s shower, measuring 80cm x 70cm, is typical in size.

The shower room has a 1.2m length of floor space, which is enough for a parent to assist little ones in the showering procedure.

Two double hooks are on the forward wall directly above the outlet for the blown-air heating, ideally positioned for drying towels. One more hook, though, would have ensured that the little room catered for the needs of all five occupants for whom the caravan is designed. A minor point, maybe, but towels have to dry somewhere.

 
Sleeping

The brilliance of this layout isn’t only about closing off the kids’ zone at night. It's about the options you have for sleeping.

At the rear, you can have two single beds; at 1.73m long they are fine for most child heights. A bunk base folds upwards from the rear wall. At the front you can turn the lounge into a double bed. Or you can use the bedroom layout totally differently, making up a double bed in the rear for parents. Depending on the ages of your children, this rear room has the potential to be ideal if one child is very young. Give the babe the bunk (roll-out prevention is provided in the form of wooden guards). Close the door when he or she goes to bed early, so the parents and two older children can spend evening time in the rest of the caravan. Then when mum and dad crawl into bed, two kids can roll out sleeping bags in the lounge.
 

Storage

Three of the four settees give excellent storage opportunity. Everyone’s pillows and sleeping bags will find a place without a squash. The fourth under-settee space is out of bounds to stuff because it’s entirely occupied by the spare wheel (of which more later), the folded mattress for the bunk, and two tables.

Five top lockers in the front and four in the rear, plus loads of shelving, create enough space for the t-shirt-type items. The wardrobe, though, gives you only 35cm of hanging width. Does that matter? Not if most of the clothing you take on holiday is the fold-up sort. There are three shelf spaces at the base of the wardrobe; the total space here is probably just about enough for everyone’s footwear; again, it depends on individual family needs.
 

Dining

With two areas, the needs of playtimes as well as mealtimes are amply catered for. And you have options. Four can sit to the freestanding table that goes in the front area. Or six can dine here if you draw out the small table from under the windowsill and then place the main table next to it, making a longer dining surface. Two can dine at the table in the rear. It clips to a ridge on the rear wall and a single leg fits into a mount on the forward edge of the table.

This looks like the ultimate in family caravan dining design; plenty of table places and options. But there’s an aspect that's less than perfect. Both tables are stored under the rear nearside settee. To get them out you have to ask everyone to leave that area to clear space so that you can take off the seat back and prop it against the opposite settee, then hinge up the wooden slatted seat base to extract first the small table, then the larger one, beneath it. The task is not arduous but it’s a bit of a nuisance. We can understand the thinking behind this table storage solution, because it does get them out of the way when not required. But any which way you look at it, this is not particularly convenient.

Lounging

The 560’s layout gives you two lounges of almost equal length. The rear settees are 1.73m long, as is the nearside front settee. The offside front settee is slightly shorter, at 1.58m.

When up to five are sitting around following their own pursuits (!) the 560 offers plenty of seating space. When TV-watching is on the agenda, you’ll need the sockets at the front nearside corner; the windowsill is amply wide enough for your television. But there are no sockets in the rear lounge. With only three mains sockets in total (two are in the kitchen), the phone-charging, TV and laptop DVD-watching and iPad needs of a family are going to be a challenge. If we bought this caravan we’d be asking our retailer to arrange to have more sockets fitted.
 

Kitchen

There’s just over 50cm of surface on the fore-end of the kitchen, and more space, where it's particularly useful, between the triangular three-burner hob and the circular sink. A chopping-board cover fits over the sink, to create additional surface space. A plastic drainer is provided, too. But it’s slightly larger than the area between the sink and the hob, with the result that it either overhangs the hob (so you can only use it when the glass top is down over the hob) or juts out slightly over the edge of the kitchen. Not a major problem; just take care that no one collides with it. And then put it away when you’ve finished washing up. So this is a kitchen in which you’d have to be superbly organised.

There’s a cabinet under the oven-grill; some of it is occupied by heating ducting and water pipes but there is usable space measuring roughly 30x40cm and 40cm in height. That, though, is the only lower storage space.

Our test model had a microwave; that’s part of the Premium Pack which adds £399 to the cost and also gives you a door flyscreen, a radio/CD unit and two other items of equipment which are important when you’re on the road…
 

Towing

The Premium Pack adds a hitch-head stabiliser and a spare wheel, both pretty much essential in terms of peace of mind and enhanced stability margin. On its test tow, the 560’s performance was impeccable; a good relaxing tow.

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