Queensland Caravan parks owners

I have not been accosted yet,however there will be an exchange of dialouge if I am.

Hi
It's very interesting that if caravaners free camp (or more correctly, bush camp) taking business away from caravan parks, it's a deadly sin, but it's perfectly ok for them to have cabins and take business away from motels !!!!!!!!!!
Maybe motel owners should be knocking on caravan park owners doors, at night, complaining.
Cheers
Neil

I live in an area that has this problem. Their is a nice place along a river that caravans and would park on the grass next to the river, blocking the view from everyone. This site was on a web site as free camping. But after many times I saw the hose from their waste water going straight into the river and their are no toilets and some of these vans did not have toilets in them, they just went into the bush. This was a place where families would go and fish and have picnics in till the ground turned into mud from the vans and parking on the grass. A caravan park owner had complained for 2 years to council to have this stopped. It was only until I took photos of several vans and sent them off to the EPA before the council acted. ( they were sent a letter from the EPA as to show cause why not to be fined for breach of the EPA act, as they where informed of the problem and did nothing about it. They spent no money in the town, just left their rubbish,dumped their waste water into our river turned our grass field into a mud bowl. But 1 klm over the bridge and their is a large paved parking area for boat trailers, has water, toilets bbq but not the view so won't use it WHY, Because they cant dump their rubbish or waste water into our river. I harassed many of them if they where destroying my backyard.Camp in an area that is suitable. And car parks at the beach are not suitable as their are no toilets, and I ask you, what's the first thing you do in the morning ??

If caravan park owners are so desperate for business that they will get up in the middle of the night to undertake a risky occupation which could result in arrest or personal injury, to harass people who will never be their customers, they should sell up and go an work for someone else. They will never ever succeed in any business.

Motherhen

There is so much in this tread that is "alleged" that I am surprised that it got a response. How about facts.
Kevin

That is a very broad statement, the Queensland Coastline is thousands of kilometres long and dotted with caravan parks all the way, are you talking about one caravan park, ten, or hundreds. Let’s not tar them all with the same brush...

But the big issue for many of these parks is that the very council they pay fees to for all kinds of council services fail to stop people camping just down the road for free, in many cases without facilities and which the ratepayer is expected to foot the bill. Wouldn’t you be dirty on the council?

There is no such thing as free camping in and around town or cities, the ratepayer pays.

And don’t read this as a criticism of ‘free camping’ it has its place and is one of the great experiences Australia has to offer... nor as an endorsement of these 'alleged' tactics, but there are a number of factors in this debate that are often overlooked in the quest for soemthing 'free'.

I reckon that allegeled isn't a real word :-)......Anyway, it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the bunch/barrel in either the free campers or camp owners. I can't imagine too many crazed camp owners on the rampage, perhaps driven insane by financial pressures and constant contact with the public...that'll do it you know. :-) As for the campers, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine a proportion of them doing the wrong thing and spoiling it for everyone. The constant barrage of this minority would force the councils to close areas off quick smart. Cheers Mike

That is a serious allegation and should be taken up with the local Police.

On the other hand I nearly came to blows with one of these free campers at our local beach the other day when he was dumping his waste water into the park.

Anyway that's given me an idea of how to get rid of the free loading bludgers from our area.

Regards

We often get people free camping right in our driveway. So I can understand where these caravan park owners are coming from, if in fact the story is even true, which i suspect might not be..
I'll always point people in the direction of a free camp when it's too early in the day to stop here, and they are travelling another 50 or more km's from us.

I’ve followed the general RV / Caravan Park story with interest because it is going to have a substantial impact on tourism infrastructure in this country. And worth noting, with the Australian dollar at current levels, the higher proportion of people travelling overseas and less inbound tourists, we are likely to see substantially less capital investment in tourism infrastructure in any case.

The issue is there has been a fundamental shift in what a caravan park is today, what it offers, and the price at which it can do this. On the one hand, increasing land valuations, and council rates means that they can no longer survive the old style model of mum and dad and the kids holidaying for 4 weeks a year at $10 per night. To attract a wider audience they have had to make substantial improvements and become resort style parks, providing a wider range of holiday inclusions apart from a toilet and shower block. For some they have been able to make this transition, for many (perhaps most) it hasn’t or won’t be financially viable to do so.

On the other hand a developing RV industry, that has sold people on a complete package of vans and vehicles that can self-support for extended periods, are not willing to pay the price required to stay in the caravan parks, but they still have a requirement to be able to service their vehicles in terms of black and grey waste, and replenish supplies, and in some cases provide an area where they can stay and have ‘safety in numbers’.

The RV Association has been quite vigorous in terms of its promotion of the benefits to local councils and the need to be an ‘RV Friendly’ town in order to gain their support. This means providing services that are in many ways are in direct competition to caravan parks, but based on a model of ‘rate-payers’ subsidise our costs on the basis we will spend money in your town. I’m not sure what studies have been done on the cost/benefit of this, but I suspect there will be a huge discrepancy between towns based on their size. The larger centres that provide access to the major super market chains, and a large number of service stations providing price tension might do okay, especially given the cost to rate-payers is spread over a larger number, but the story for smaller country towns might be completely different.

Ultimately, there is likely to be a declining investment in caravan parks generally, and pressure will increasingly be placed on local councils to provide facilities for RVer’s in general, but I doubt this will continue to be offered on a no-cost basis. I’m not sure what the model will be going forward, but caravan parks as we know them will all but disappear overtime, and eventually the cost burden of this will shift to the RV community...

But I suspect until the ‘new’ model can be worked out the divide between the vested interests will simply get larger, and the vocalising on both sides will get louder...

Caveat...I’m neither an RV’er or Caravan Park owner...

Good luck out there...