Illegal camping and soaring demand for rubbish disposal are the downsides for authorities as Beachport experiences a record number of tourists this festive season.
Campers have had to be “moved on” by Wattle Range Council general inspectors at a number of unauthorised locations including the foreshore, Pool of Siloam and the Dick McIntyre Memorial Oval within the golf course grounds.
The thousands of visitors are also generating huge amounts of rubbish which is creating unsightly scenes and stretching the capacity of Wattle Range Council staff and their contractors.
Extra resources have been directed by council to waste management and members of the Lions Club of Beachport and Rivoli Bay have also volunteered to assist.
Council engineering services director Peter Halton said the number of campers in the adjacent Beachport Conservation Park was unprecedented.
Mr Halton said these campers were coming into the Beachport township to dispose of their rubbish and council had not anticipated such a demand.
“Last September school holidays, council ran a two-week trial whereby we placed a skip bin alongside the Beachport Visitor Information Centre for the use of visitors,” Mr Halton said.
“There were no issues with this and we decided to have three skip bins there for the Christmas/New Year period.
“These were quickly filled and so council arranged to send 10 additional wheelie bins to this area at Beachport on New Year’s Eve.
“There were also bags of rubbish being placed in the street litter bins across Beachport and especially in the car park in Railway Terrace.
“As well as our contractors and council staff, four Lions Club members showed great community spirit to take the rubbish on New Year’s Eve out to the Beachport waste transfer station.
“The Lions have also gone out to the Beachport Conservation Park to collect rubbish and to take it to the waste transfer station.”
Mr Halton said he had first-hand knowledge of the demand for waste collection.
“I was outside the Beachport Visitor Information Centre one morning and saw about 10 vehicles pull up within a 10-minute period,” he said.
“In that time, one of the empty skip bins was completely filled.
“I spoke to the visitors and they had all been camping in the Beachport Conservation Park.”
According to Mr Halton, the amount of visitor numbers suggested Beachport was becoming a ‘mini-Robe’.
“We expect it to be busy until after the Australia Day holiday,” he said.
“This is becoming the new normal and we have spoken to the Beachport District Development Association about this.”
He said council was looking to improve its signage to better state the local government by-laws regarding illegal camping.
“We did have a sign near the harbourmasters cottage which said ‘RV Parking’ and some people took this to mean that RV camping was allowed,” Mr Halton said.
“We have since placed a ‘No Camping’ sign there.
“Our general inspectors are at Beachport twice a day and we are not taking a sledgehammer approach to the illegal camping.
“If members of the public have any concerns about council-related matters, I encourage them not to use social media but to contact council direct by phone 24/7 or else call at the Beachport Visitor Information Centre.”
