Grey nomads up in arms about Townsville City Council’s proposed campsite booking system
The introduction of a camping site booking system by Townsville City Council has grey nomads up in arms on social media.
Townsville
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Caravaners looking to stop in Townsville will be robbed of their ‘spontaneity’, as Townsville City Council confirms they will soon need to book their spots online.
With just 93 available RV camping spots across Townsville’s six free campgrounds; Saunders Park, Bluewater Park, Toomulla Park, Vincent ‘Bushy’ Parker Park, Balgal Beach Foreshore and Justin Street Park, a council spokesman confirmed an online booking system will be rolled out “later this year”.
It’s meant to combat “overcrowding” and help the council regulate occupancy, but some grey nomads – retirees who spend their time travelling in a caravan or motorhome – say the system just won’t work.
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And the council’s plan to support the system with compliance patrols has also hit a nerve among the caravanning community.
It comes as Townsville City Council’s draft recreational vehicle plan, which is out for public consultation, is due to close on March 9.
The council has gone out to the public for feedback on its plan to introduce a fee to cover the running costs and upkeep of facilities such as toilets, rubbish bins and potable water at six campsites because providing the facilities free of charge was no longer sustainable.
Grey nomads of nine years, Maria Augustus-Dunn and Brad Dunn said that booking systems took the spontaneity out of road-tripping. “We often when we are travelling we just make it up as we go along so we rarely pre-book anything unless we know we have to be in a certain town,” Ms Augustus-Dunn said.
“I don’t think it is going to work and from my experience it doesn’t work.
“The only way you can really police this is by having a ranger on site and if you do have a ranger on site, they should just collect the fees and show people where to camp.”
But the council spokesman said the online booking system would benefit local residents, who in recent years had “made complaints to council about overcrowding in council campgrounds and issues with campers’ vehicles being parked in residential streets”.
“If one campground has reached its capacity, the system will also be able to refer travellers to other campgrounds,” he said.
Originally published as Grey nomads up in arms about Townsville City Council’s proposed campsite booking system