Council launches campground compliance blitz

Campers breaching COVID-19 restrictions are being targeted in a compliance blitz beginning from this weekend.

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said Council would be ramping up inspections of the campsites after reports of several people not following the COVID-19 guidelines.

“It is really not acceptable that there are people who are doing the wrong thing and flaunting the guidelines that have been put in place to protect our entire community,” Cr Hill said.

“We opened our campgrounds back up to travellers in good faith that people would do the right thing and that they would be traceable should we get any reported cases in Townsville again.

“It is beyond disappointing to see that people aren’t signing in to the campgrounds, that they are staying longer than allowed, and that we have to increase patrols to monitor this.

Community Health, Safety and Environmental Sustainability Committee chairperson Margie Ryder said the compliance blitz would begin on 12 September and the results would determine if the campgrounds would remain open to the public.

“The results of the blitz will be crucial to determining if we can keep these campgrounds open with the school holidays and long weekend coming up,” Cr Ryder said.

“Our officers will not be lenient with people doing the wrong thing and they will be issuing penalty infringements to those that are caught and working with the police to move people on”.

“Our city has been very lucky through the COVID pandemic and we can’t have the minority risking the health and safety of the rest of our community.”