The Shire’s Destination Harvey Region team will now ensure each site has adequate visitor wayfinding and is strongly marketed to Australia’s growing RV community.

Perth Now reports that the soon-to-be-defunct Australind site drew 379 bookings from April 2023 to February 2024, but RVs will no longer be able to stop there from July 1, 2024, onwards.

The newspaper reports that the motion came as an amendment from deputy shire president, John Bromham, who said it was not practical to have an overnight camping spot in such a highly residential area.

“Australind is a self-sufficient community that doesn’t need the small amounts of income that these bays may bring to its businesses whilst the residents pay the cost to manage and police the sites,” he said.

Cr Craig Carbone agreed saying Australind was a prime waterfront area.

“If we are going to talk about bringing people into the shire with tourism, talk about theme parks, wineries, walk trails or a zoo,” he said. “Putting caravans on an area of prime waterfront like Christina Street is madness …. we have shires right next door to us in Dardanup and Bunbury with RV parking, they can use their facilities.”

However, Perth Now reports that Cr Joe Capogreco was not in favour of removing Australind from the trial area.

“The whole idea was to bring tourists to our shire, and Australind is included in that shire,” he said. “I think we need to have a location in Australind as part of our shire … we should want people to visit Australind as much as they visit Yarloop, Brunswick and Harvey.”

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