For the last few nights I have been monitoring the number of cars parked at nighttime around Lake Ainsworth next to the caravan park.
it is quite clear that over 100 public parking spaces are being used by guests of the caravan park. That is approximately half of all available parking around the lake. When the caravan park isn’t full there are no cars parked overnight in the Lake Ainsworth precinct.
Two nights ago at 9.30pm, there were 76 cars on the southern road, 20 cars in the new Council car park, and an extra 15 cars on Ross St.
The caravan park has recently implemented some policy changes including the removal of all the permanent vans. This has generated additional guests which ultimately means more cars.. Its quite clear that the caravan park is not providing enough parking spaces for it’s guests.
Ballina Shire Council needs to work with the caravan park to ensure that its guests do not use the public carparks or local streets as a permanent parking station for the duration of the school holidays. The Caravan Park needs to ensure that it has enough space set aside for all it’s guests vehicles.
Ballina Council has already spent over $500,000 of local road infrastructure including the addition of 80 new parking spaces to replace those that will be lost when the eastern road is converted into a public park.
When council completes it’s upgrade program, including providing additional parking and improved drainage on the southern road, I believe that council should also introduce a no parking policy between 1am and 4am around the lake to ensure that all parking spots are available for the public.
This would also stop illegal camping down at the lake.
If changes to the parks management has resulted in a reduction in the space available for parking simply to maximise the income then those changes would not be welcomed by the local community.
Lake Ainsworth is widely regarded as the jewel of Lennox. As it’s popularity grows traffic management will be something that needs to be monitored to ensure that this lovely area is easily accessed by the public and that the local environment and water quality improves over time.
Cr Jeff Johnson, Lennox Head
The closure of the eastern road is a dumb, disgraceful, selfish act of localism dressed up as an environmental good. It’s a disgrace because the residents of Lennox Head are selfishly seeking to assert their ‘rights’ over the lake and exclude local visitors from using it. Clearly, at least 70% of the people who use the lake are local families who will not be able to cart their kids, picnic and swimming stuff on foot through the proposed new park (especially single parents). Its dumb because anyone that regularly uses the lake knows that the only thing deterring drunken anti-social behaviour around the lakeside is the police cars patrolling the eastern road. In short, the road closure is an act of localism opportunistically being dressed up as an environmental good. In reality the lake is only busy for three months of the year. The inconvenient truth is that closing the eastern road is a deliberate act of social cleansing being facilitated by dog whistling local politicians. No doubt the next step will involve paid parking to alleviate issues caused by the loss of parking spots around the eastern side of the lake. It is not too late to stop the road closure. There are a lot more disgruntled dog walkers and local families than entitled selfish Lennox Head residents and opportunistic dog whistlers. Access to the northern rivers beaches and reserves must remain open to everyone. These shared community assets should not be handed over to the interests of local property owners.
Nothing new here, yes Council can place signs everywhere but will they police the parking.
It appears that the State Government and their so called NSW Holiday Park Trust are somewhat of a law to themselves. They continue you take over the caravan parks and forget those the locals and why not they dont live in the local areas.
Its about time the State Government started to listen to the concerns on the way this Trust operate. Why is this Trust not required to make certain financial information public after all it is owned by us the people on NSW. Why does it take an office in two locations with such a large number of staff to oversee when contractors are used in the caravan parks along the coast.
Would it be not a more financial viable options for Council to operate these caravan parks and the State Government have a small group of 3 or 4 specific people that meet with Council and caravan park staff regularly to oversee operations and assistance then to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on overpaid office bearers in 2 locations plus Trust members.
So Jeff,
The caravan park is making money, the Council is not making money and it has to raise Council rates and the environment is getting trashed? Is that the good news?