As of midnight last Wednesday, all caravan and camping parks were forced to close to campers, except where people live permanently or are using as an interim abode where the primary residence is not available.
It was one of the raft of restrictions brought in by the Federal Government to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and those restrictions have got even tighter over the past week.
Parks Victoria, on recommendations from the Chief Medical Officer, has closed all parks and camping grounds throughout Victoria as well.
This basically means all holiday makers wanting to camp will be unable to visit Lakes Entrance for the foreseeable future – a huge dent to the local accommodation providers who suffered through the Black Summer bushfires and were looking forward to an Easter School Holiday economic boost.
Kerry Adams and her husband have been at North Arm Caravan Park for 42 years and have never experienced anything like this.
After the bushfires wiping out the Christmas season, Kerry was looking forward to Easter to pay some bills.
“We’ve had the double whammy now, but it has to be done and we are determined to soldier on,” she said.
“With the bushfires we knew approximately when it would be over, but with COVID-19 it could be six weeks or six months,” she said.
Susan Smethurst, from Caravilla Caravan Park, is concerned funding for bushfire relief will be delayed even more now.
“As far as the park goes we had five camps that had to pack up and leave when the new restrictions came in. They were very understanding and compliant,” Susan said.
“We have 34 permanent residents. As long as they have a residential address here they can stay, but all our annual bookings have gone.
“Everyone I contacted accepted the cancellations without question, which was good.
“During the bushfires we had people trying to argue they should still come down and leaving bad reviews on Facebook, which was frustrating.”
With the office now only open three mornings a week, it has given Susan more time to lodge grant applications for bushfire relief.
“It is so time consuming, the paperwork is massive, plus the criteria is too narrow,” she said.
“I had one application that was 200 pages long. It is so much harder than it needs to be and although we lost all our business, we are ineligible for most assistance because we weren’t close enough to the fire.
“One small grant I was successful with meant I had to submit 89 pages of financial statements, it took them seven and a half weeks to accept it, then another fortnight for payment.
“I know of businesses in Lakes Entrance who have given up applying even for that one because of the time and information needed.”
All caravan and camp park owners contacted believe it is the right decision to make, but feel for their staff and their families.
IMAGE: Caravan and camping parks across Australia have been forced to close to campers amid the coronavirus pandemic. All are feeling the affects, however bushfire-affected tourism towns more so having just got back on their feet after a disastrous summer. Many were hopeful of an Easter boom, but are now faced with staff cuts and no economic boon, on top of trying to apply for difficult bushfire-related grants just to keep them afloat.
