CAMPING GROUND RESIDENCES

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25765, 29 March 1949, Page 6

CAMPING GROUND RESIDENCES

CONDITIONS AT TIMARU COMPLAINTS BY HEALTH DEPARTMENT From Our Own Reporter TIMARU, March 28. Complaints about the conditions under which persons are living in huts at a motor camping ground in Timaru have been made by the Health Department to the sanitary department of the Timaru City Council. Overcrowding, cooking in huts, leaking foofs, and high rentals were alleged. It appeared , that huts rented to campers on any camping grounds came within scope of the Health Act, reported the sanitary inspector (Mr A. W. B. Watkinson) to the council this evening. The council, as local authority for the licensing of camping grounds, had to accept some responsibility for their hygiene and sanitation. Mr Watkinson said that in some ways it was fortunate there were two camping-grounds available in Timaru, because with housing conditions still acute at times, families, as a last resort, had to seek accommodation there. Even if the practice was to be accepted as inevitable, he would recommend that conditions should be added to camping ground licences, limiting the number of persons living in these types of residences to a husband and wife and one child, these to be recommended for admission by an official housing authority, and accommodation and sanitation to be maintained at a standard approved by the city inspector.

The council decided to defer the question for six months.