Changing tide as coastal caravan parks snapped up

The porch of his old caravan is just 100 metres from the beach at Inverloch in South Gippsland. From his deckchair, the retired speed camera operator can see across Anderson's Inlet all the way to Venus Bay and the hilltops of Wilsons Promontory.

"When the sandbar comes up in the middle of the inlet it's time to go fishing," he said. "There's good fish in the inlet at low tide, mainly flathead. It's pristine water, really clear, because it's straight off Bass Strait."

But any day now, Mr Rayson, 52, expects a letter asking that he pack up his weekender and leave Moller's Caravan Park for good.

Like countless other caravan parks along the coast and Murray River, Moller's has succumbed to the twin pressures of population growth and demand for holiday houses.

Its listing for sale is just the latest in a string of parks turned over to developers in recent years. On Phillip Island at Cowes, Woolworths last month lodged plans to turn the Boomerang Caravan Park into a $20 million shopping centre.

In June at Barwon Heads, developer Hamptons won approval to carve up the Rondor Caravan Park into 43 residential lots.

Over in Portsea, developer Bourskope has started selling house plots on the site of the old caravan park it purchased two years ago.

And in Torquay, former Richmond Football Club president Clinton Casey has turned the Zeally Bay Caravan Park, which he paid $12.5 million for in 2003, into a luxury resort, townhouses and apartments.

There are many more examples including in Hastings, Lake Wendouree, Echuca and Yarraby.

Back in Inverloch, all three caravan parks in the town have been zoned to make way for housing development. "It's the death of the great Aussie holiday," Mr Rayson said. "You can't take vans anywhere any more. The only place I've got to take this is my backyard or the tip."

His view at Moller's could be worth $6 million, with a developer believed to be in the final stages of negotiation to buy it and build medium-density apartments, with ground-floor shops.

Like all Victorian councils, Bass Coast Shire is required by state planning laws to have a 10-year supply of zoned residential land. A spokeswoman said it currently had rezoning applications before it that would accommodate an extra 3000 dwellings or more.

Caravan parks are often the obvious choice for higher density housing and retail centres, because they are large parcels of cleared land, often with beach frontages and close to the main street. At Moller's, as in most cases, the land value has outgrown the business' profitability.

The president of the Inverloch Ratepayers Association, Dave Sutton, said it was inevitable the local caravan parks would disappear. He said residents were now focusing on pushing for any development at Moller's to be in keeping with the town's low-rise buildings and abundant vegetation.

"You come here for seclusion, quiet beaches and to get away from suburbia, but what people have been building here lately is replicating the city."

Victorian Caravan Park Association president Peter Cornish said several operators in towns such as Rosebud, on the Mornington Peninsula, were also considering selling or demolishing sites to make way for upscale holiday accommodation or mobile home parks for permanent residents.