Bridgetown officially recognised as an RV Friendly town

The Bridgetown council has agreed to acknowledge Bridgetown, along with the Greenbushes Pool, as RV Friendly locations.

In the April 27 council meeting, the council voted in the majority to pass through the officer recommendation to authorise the CEO to sign the Letter of Understanding to acknowledge that the town of Bridgetown had met the criteria to be accepted as an ‘RV Friendly Town’ and that the Greenbushes Pool had met the criteria to be accepted as an ‘RV Friendly Destination’.

In signing the Letter of Understanding, the council agreed to allow free short-term overnight parking adjacent to the main Bridgetown shopping precinct for campervans, motorhomes and caravans, with a free public dump point and potable water available at the site assessed, which was the Bridgetown railway car park, in order to gain ‘RV Friendly Town’ classification.

The council also agreed they met the criteria of having no or low cost short-term overnight parking, with rubbish bins, a barbecue, toilets, play area and potable water available for Greenbushes Pool to be gain its ‘RV Friendly Destination’ classification.

Bridgetown-Greenbushes shire president Jenny Mountford said the council had wanted for both Bridgetown and the Greenbushes Pool to be assessed and classified as ‘RV Friendly’ due to the increase in demand for travellers.

“We have been wanting to do that for a couple of years because mobile home and caravan travellers are increasing and we wanted to be a stop for them, because prior to that, they were just driving through the towns,” she said.

She also noted the potential impact the RV Friendly Town status and the free parking for travellers could have on the Bridgetown Caravan Park and discussed those concerns with the owners.

“So we did a three-month trial, because the caravan park raised some concerns around the free parking and as a part of the trial, we included a box where travellers who used the free parking in the town square could put their receipts, so then we could have an idea of what spend the town was getting from the people who were using it.

“The caravan park owners were able to determine whether the trial had an impact on their bookings in a detrimental way, and it didn’t.

“We’ve got large quantities of those tourists coming, so there’s room for everyone, so it wasn’t going to be detrimental to the caravan park.”