A Queensland caravan park which closed last year is set to re-open … but instead of catering to tourists, the site will now be used to house families displaced by recent floods and to ease the ongoing homelessness crisis.
The Gympie Caravan Park has been completely shut since February, 2021, after the managers were found to have breached their lease by failing to upgrade the site’s toilets and kitchens.
Tourists have actually not been allowed to stay at the park since the middle of 2020, when issues around adequate maintenance first came to the fore.
The local council finally closed the park to permanent residents, as well, after saying it could not afford the significant work required.
However, the housing crisis, which has been exacerbated by recent floods, persuaded the local authority that the site did have a role to play.
The Courier Mail reports that 24 flexible cabins and homes are being installed on the site to provide homes for about 50 people. A number of prefabricated cabins are being trucked in from Queensland’s west.
The newspaper reports that work has already begun at the park, with older cabins being torn out and others repaired. The park will offer cabins with up to four bedrooms.
Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch said the park’s new homes would be configured ‘in a way that suits the needs of the people we’re trying to support through this process’.
Gympie Mayor, Glen Hartwig, was delighted that the plan had come together so quickly after hundreds of local houses and businesses had been inundated by floodwaters at the end of February.
He said it meant being able to put a roof over the heads of desperate people.
“For some it’s the difference between a tent or some corrugated iron that’s protecting them from the weather,” Mr Hartwig said. “What a great outcome.”
