Residents of a Werribee South caravan park fear they’ll soon be homeless, with new owners taking over the site they’ve called home for decades.
The old BP caravan park on O’Connors Road is being bought by Holiday Lifestyle Developments, which leases it now. Settlement is due to go through early next year.
The investment company plans to transform the site into “Wyndham Cove Estate”, offering “boutique style” beachside living.
At least six current residents own their own caravans or units, but lease the land these are on. The new owners wrote to permanent residents in November, offering them the chance to buy a plot of land with a new townhouse, or they can rent a townhouse. The advertised price for house and land packages starts at $295,000.
Alternatively, residents have been offered relocation to a caravan park in Echuca or Portland at the new owner’s expense.
Beverly Bolton and husband Bill have lived at the park for 23 years, but don’t have the money to buy into the new-look park.
Mrs Bolton, 63, has survived three bouts of cancer, and first moved to the park with her husband for a seachange.
“This is just added stress I don’t need,” she told Star Weekly. “I feel it’s very unfair.”
“Our family is in Werribee, my doctors are in Werribee. I don’t want to be shifted to Portland or Echuca,” she said.
“At the moment, we just don’t know what is going to happen.”
Marilyn Wilson moved to the park in 1999 to look after her ill father. Now 66, she’s facing her own health struggles.
Ms Wilson is permanently hooked up to a portable oxygen supply and is on the waiting list for a heart and lung transplant.
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said.
“I live with my daughter here … I can’t afford to spend what little savings I have to buy the land.
“With my health the way it is, I can’t move to Echuca or Portland either.”
Bob Hanley, 79, has called the BP caravan park home for 25 years. He fears he could be facing eviction sooner than others.
A map outlining all the plots on offer has been put up at the front of the caravan park – it shows Mr Hanley’s plot as already being sold.
“I have nowhere to go ,” he said. “I might live with my granddaughter in Werribee for a little while, but then I don’t know where I’ll go.”
But Holiday Lifestyle Developments director Lauren Clarke was adamant Mr Hanley’s site has not been sold, despite what the sign says.
“It’s a bigger site … there has been some registration of interest, but it has not been sold,” she told Star Weekly.
“Nothing’s happening … we aren’t selling the sites at the moment.”
The BP park will be the third caravan park to shut in the west in a 12 month period; the Half Moon Caravan Park at Brooklyn closed in January, while residents at Williamstown North have until January 13 to move out of the Hobsons Bay Caravan Park to make way for a four-storey residential development.
