Wantirna Caravan Park closes after year-long fight to keep it open

THE year-long fight to save the Wantirna Caravan Park has ended, with the last six remaining battlers staying in temporary cabins until their homes get relocated. So what does the future hold for the site?

Wantirna Caravan Park evictee comes to terms with the park’s closure. Picture: Steve Tanner

EVICTED residents from Wantirna Caravan Park say the site is “like a disaster zone”, with only a handful of homes left amid piles of rubble.

Residents were officially forced out of the park on Monday, to make way for a planned multimillion-dollar townhouse development.

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The park was home to 112 permanent residents, but has been reduced to just six people who are temporarily staying in cabins as they wait for their homes to be relocated.

Abandoned sites have been turned into rubbish tips, with demolished remains of prefab homes next to discarded furniture and household items.

Residents have likened what’s left of the caravan park to a “disaster zone”. Pictures: Steve Tanner

Wantirna Residents Action Group’s Peter Gray compared the mess to the aftermath of a natural disaster.

“To me it is a disaster,” he said.

“A man-made disaster that could have been avoided.”

Mr Gray, who has lived at the park for 27 years, was among the final few residents staying in a cabin.

He said he was expecting to be gone by the end of this week, with his house being taken to a caravan park in between Pakenham and Drouin.

“It’s the end of a community,” he said.

“They’ve broken this community.”

Mess left behind at the park.

Barry Bedwell, 81, has been in the park 14 years and has relocated to a rental unit in Wantirna South.

Mr Bedwell said he was one of the few people still uncertain about whether he would be able to relocate his home from the park, or find a buyer for it.

He said he had invested more than $100,000 buying and upgrading the home but would recoup only a fraction of that in resale value.

“It’s disappointing,” he said.

“It’s just stinking the whole way it’s been handled.”

A semi-trailer takes a home out of the park.

The closure comes after a year-long campaign for compensation to cover resettling and moving costs, but as yet residents have not received any money.

The State Government has previously said it would not provide compensation.

Homeowner and father-of-two Peter, who asked for his surname not to be used, said he was “disgusted” that people had been kicked out without compensation or reduced rent from the time of the eviction notice.

He said the past few months at the park had been “chaotic” and his family had to live next to a “bomb site” of debris left behind.

“It looks like a cyclone has gone through it,” he said.

The park’s owner, developer Andrew Yu, from the company Longriver, bought the site for $35.6 million in August 2016 and informed residents in November 2016 that the park would be closing.

Longriver’s 294-townhouse proposal was rejected by Knox councillors in July 2017 but has since been appealed to VCAT.

The hearing was in November and a decision is not yet known.

Longriver declined to answer Knox Leader’s questions this week.

Upturned furniture is among the belongings left behind.