Should it be easier to be able to open a caravan park?
While a steady stream of well-located caravan parks are being sold up to developers, those who want to offer a new place for grey nomads to park their rigs are often thwarted by bureaucracy.
The experience of Barry and Shirley Breckenridge is not untypical. The couple, who run a farmstay for holidaymakers near Wauchope on the NSW mid north coast, desperately want to turn their business into a caravan park but they are prevented from doing so by council red tape.
They told the Wauchope Gazette that they have applied several times to Port Macquarie Hastings-Council to turn their 100-acre property on King Creek Road into a caravan park, but have always been turned down.
The couple bought the land 21 years ago in 1997.
“We asked the council if we could open a caravan park, and their staff said ‘yes’, but we didn’t get it in writing and, when it went to council, they asked for an environmental impact statement,” said Mr Breckenridge. “From that day on, I have had three goes to get it through, but they said it was a farm and that it was too far from town … it’s 4.5 kilometres from town and we are zoned in town.”
The business can accommodate up to 100 people, sleeping in houses and cabins.
“People come here and think it’s a lovely place and we have people coming back to stay,” Mr Breckenridge told the Wauchope Gazette. “What we are trying to do is get people to spend money in Wauchope.”
Currently, the Breckenridges are allowed to have two caravans for two days at a time
Nobody goes on holiday for two days,” said Mr Breckenridge. “They also say it’s not in the best interests of the public, but Wauchope needs a caravan park!”
A council spokesman told the Gazette that the couple’s property is zoned rural so it doesn’t allow for a caravan park to be built there. He added that its proximity to the railway line and the industrial area means it’s very unlikely that they would get its zoning changed.
Have you done a Material Change of Use application. Did that for ourselves in Qld. Took me 4 years to go through all required applications. Succeeded. That is why it makes me very angry when people are negative about cost of places. Yes there are rip offs. But shite. it cost money to srt up. Good luck.
From reading the article above can’t help thinking there could be obstacles from within the Council. That is, a vested interest in NOT wanting to rezone. The property covers 100 acres, why would the railway line and the industrial area be an obstacle? Is there no where else on the property a caravan park can be constructed? Yes, set up costs can be prohibitive.
Narrow minded councils always stand in the way of progress with there red tape. If you allow these people to open there property for basic caravanning people will come and spend money. But they need to be able to stay for more than a couple of days
As much as we love caravanning, we would not be happy if we lived next door to a 100 acre farm and it was rezoned by council to be used as a caravan park.
narrow minded people seem to pop up everywhere.
This is why Australia is so expensive to live in. Local, state & federal government intrusive red tape and charges increase the cost of everything in this country. Useless public servents & little hitler polititions making decisions on things they know nothing about or possibly have a vested interest in a competing business perhaps?
New Zealand is the caravan park mecca and the councils help the owners. Australian councils are a joke.