The future of free camping in Tasmania has been very much under the spotlight in the last couple of years … but the picture still remains incredibly confusing to most.
The goings-on in the beautiful Meander Valley are perhaps fairly typical of the seemingly ever-changing situation across Tasmania that has kept grey nomads guessing what might happen next.
In early 2018, the local council responded to complaints about the behaviour of free campers at Westbury Recreation ground and closed it down. Following a wider review, similar sites at Bracknell Reserve and Deloraine suffered the same fate.
Meander Valley Council’s General Manger, Martin Gill, told the Grey Nomads that the closures were also influenced by the review of free camping on public land that was being undertaken by the State Government.
“Some councillors fought very hard to retain free camping,” he said. “Others were less enthusiastic and made the point that it wasn’t free camping, arguing that council was paying for the service.”
However, that was not the end of the story.
In May last year, the council resolved to re-open Bracknell to self-contained Recreational Vehicles and charge $3 per night. And, at Westbury, a local landowner opened a free camping site for recreational vehicles and caravans on private land.
“It would be fair to say that the free camping provided by the private landowner has been popular and has probably offset the closure of the Westbury Recreation Ground,” said Mr Gill.
He said that, in the area, low cost camping was also available at the Apex Caravan Park and at Chudleigh showground.
According to Mr Gill, the economic impact of not having free camping during 2018 was actually fairly negligible.
“I understand why free campers make the argument but the economic benefits are generally overstated for Meander Valley,” he said.
Looking forward, Mr Gill said the council still needed to be mindful of competitive neutrality principles.
“Council will need to find a balance and, under the new State Government policy position, will need to be able to demonstrate community benefit of subsidising free camping,” he said.
Mr Gill said that due to geographic locations and the limited presence of commercial providers, some local authorities might not be able to provide free camping on council land.
“But we would expect that, if a council is able to, it will try to provide some free camping,” he said.
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If benefits from free camping ask Julia Creek, Blackall in Queensland. They rely on grey nomads and free camping. We recently stayed outside Macksville for 2 weeks spent money at
Woolworths, IGA, chemist, fuel, hardware, bakery. On more than 1 occasion. Would come to several hundred dollars. It all helps keep jobs.
Alright lets get everyone on a level playing field. Stop the caravan parks that are whinging putting cabins in and wiping out the motel business.We like Pauline spend hundreds of dollars in some small towns because they let us free camp and we go out of our way to avoid the ones that dont.They just dont get it.Stevo.
I have a strong interest in Tassie tourism having had a guest house in Devonport and been a member of the lobby group which went to Canberra in the early 90s and secured passenger subsidy to cross Bass Strait.
I’m a member of several mobile home / camper groups online and for places that do not provide any free camping areas for self contained vehicles we have a popular expression:
“Drive on thru – don’t spend there.”
Spending in areas where there is free camping spreads money around the communities much more equitably among small businesses and tourism venues. However, in freecamp free areas a lot of the money goes into the coffers of the head offices of the big chains of Caravan parks franchise managements on the mainland.
Because the local parks have high franchise fees their camping fees are very high and putting off many travelers especially fixed income pensioners.
Tasmania is not on my travel plans, nothing to do with free camping, it just costs too much to get their.
We are booked for tassie with the thought of free camping if free is in danger we shall cancel the trip as we have saved to get there how disapointing
We are currently touring Tasmania on our 4th visit over the last 12 – 15 years and have not had any problems finding “free or low cost” camping sites. That’s not to say that the usual views of caravan park owners aren’t evident here but as Stevo said, “they just don’t get it”.
Even the Hobart Show Grounds charges $30 for a site with power and water connection, $35 if you want to connect your sullage hose and if you want to use the on site showers you will need to purchase “tokens” for hot water.
But before you ask “why do we keep coming back?”, well it’s a beautiful part of Aust,, we have “relo’s” down here and we stay for about 3 months on each visit which, with the use of the “free and low cost” camp sites, helps spread out the cost of coming over on the “Spirit” with caravan in tow.
Cheers Sundy.