Unhappy campers sad about closure

DEPARTURE: Permanent campers at Clareville A & P Showgrounds will have to leave. Steve Adshead (left), Carol Kehely holding her dog Jack, Peter and Mel Garlick. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

Society can not afford to upgrade

A group of long-term campers will be evicted from the Clareville A&P Showgrounds, with a two-month window to find somewhere else to live.

Campers at the Clareville A&P showgrounds had initially been given until this week to vacate their permanent sites, after a complaint about the facilities led the A&P Society to decide to close the area, rather than pay for a required upgrade.

But after a last-ditch appeal to the council, the campers will now be allowed to stay at the campground until June.

Clareville A&P showground manager Ray Beale said the council and the society had reached an agreement which would allow the campers to stay until June.

"The council have been very helpful with this and they realise the situation we've been put in."

The society could not afford to make the changes needed to bring the campsite up to the required standard so the campers would need to find somewhere else to live, he said.

They would not be able to relocate to the casual campsite next door.

"We have a lot of groups come in for events and we have to have that free for them. We just can't put them there."

The complaint related to a breach of campground regulations which stipulate ablutions blocks should be located within 75 metres from the campsite, Mr Beale said.

The campers, some of whom have been living at the site for many years, had been seeking a new site since being notified late last month the society could not afford the upgrade. Campground residents said they were "gutted" by the decision to close the site.

Camper Steve Adshead said they had searched from Featherston to Pahiatua for a new campground, without any luck.

"It's not going to be easy... a lot of places now are just not interested in taking anyone."

House bus owner Peter Garlick said it would be hard to leave the campground.

"We are a family. It's just like a big, extended family here."

Most campgrounds did not take long-term campers, and many did not accept house buses, he said.

Mel Garlick said they had made a deliberate lifestyle choice.

"We bought a bus and that's where we want to live - it's not easy for us to come and go."

"This is home and we love it."