The 12-month trial of free camping a Ballarat’s Pioneer Park has been extended … despite fierce opposition from local caravan parks.
There had been strong speculation that councillors would halt the trial when they met to discuss the matter, but instead they have agreed it should run for a further three months.
A statement from Ballarat City Council said further discussions would also be held on alternative models and locations for operating freedom camping in the town. The future of the trial will be determined at a later date.
Two of the town’s biggest local caravan parks said earlier this year that site nights were down 120 in December 2014 compared with the previous year, with a further drop of 212 nights in January. In February, one of the parks was down 58 site nights. They also claim there was a reduction of 246 site nights in April.
The Balart Courier newspaper reports that the caravan parks, which include Big 4 Ballarat, also put forward evidence of the Wendouree site’s alleged misuse and claimed there had been a number of site breaches of the operating conditions.
The parks provided photographic evidence of small campervans, caravans, roof-top campers, tents, mini buses, four-wheel-drives, cars and people with swags using the park. Council officers investigated the claims and found there were a number of incidents where stays at Pioneer Park have exceeded the two day maximum.
The caravan park operators claimed about 53% of overnight visitors at Pioneer Park were ‘non-compliant’ with the water requirements.
Council officers had recommended to the council that free camping at Pioneer Park trial be brought to an end, but councillors ignored the advice and threw the free camping concept a lifeline.
We rarely stay in free parks in or near town/cities, and although we have a shower & toilet on board we don’t have a “grey water” holding tank. The last such park we stayed in was a council controlled one in Sorell Tas.. Although not free ($7.50 per night), it did state that it was for “self contained” RV’s.. We called in to use the Dump Point & as luck would have it the council staff turned up for there usual “look see” so we asked about grey water. On this occasion they told us that as long as we collected it & put it down the “Dump point” then all would be ok, which it was & we stayed there for 3 nights with no problems. The “backpackers’, some in cars & some on bicycles all English speaking, couldn’t read the NO CAMPING sign though but were made aware of it at 2.00 am when the automatic sprinkler system kicked in.
There was another recent trial carried out in the Cleremont area of Qld. in relation to free or low cost camping where campers were asked to hand their receipts in from their shopping in the local area, the response & amount of money spent in that area amazed everybody, so there is a lot to be said in favour of free camping & many country towns have realised that & are very welcoming of us travellers, but we all know who is the main opposition to free campers, but as I have said previously, perhaps the councils could look at the rates they charge caravan parks ???????????????????????? Cheers Tony
We stayed two nights in April this year, there were no non compliant vehicles during our at night vigilance. We are a self contained motor home and used it during the day to get around, I might add that when we left the sound and light show at sovereign hill there were three wiz bangers parked up in their car park. That’s three that were not at Pioneer Park nor in the van parks.
We stayed there for two night in March, actually went out of our way to check it out. The CMCA members collecting the surveys from the visitors showed us figures for the spend in town and it was averaging over $1000 per day in the first 60 days of the trial. Despite the claims of the caravan parks it was obvious that the trial was being successful, we for one would not have bothered to to stop in Ballarat if it had not been there and we left over $300 behind in town.
I drove past there today and saw a n old camper trailer set up there that looked very unlikely to be compliant .
Ballarat Camp Spot will remain there for as long as they want travellers to stop at there Town and spend money. If they close it , we move on and spend our money elsewhere .