While many councillors recently attended a conference in Mandurah, Western Australia, leading to calls to limit the number of conferences councillors could attend, ward three representative Mark Kitchener was in Coffs Harbour looking at issues including the number of campervans travelling to Queensland each year.

The Sustainable Economic Growth for Regional Australia conference covered many issues, but discussions on campervans and motorhomes, otherwise known as RVs, really peaked Cr Kitchener’s interest.

The conference revealed “$6 billion goes to Queensland every year, and they use NSW as a transit zone,” Cr Kitchener.

While many travelled through the Shoalhaven and stayed an occasional bight or two here on the way north, “I would think Shoalhaven City would like these RVs to stay a lot longer in our towns, and for the owners to spend more money here,” Cr Kitchener said.

“We have lots of RVs that come to our community, but it would be good to make things nice for them so they come back more often.”

A key was meeting the criteria to be recognised as an RV-friendly town, and Cr Kitchener said he would like to see Ulladulla take the steps necessary to be declared RV-friendly.

That would bring free publicity through a magazine sent to all 66,000 members of RV and camping peak organisation, the CCMA, according to Cr Kitchener.

“All those members will be notified if we become RV-friendly, and as far as I understand it, it will be a fairly simple and inexpensive exercise to meet the criteria,” he said.

“It will bring an economic boost through more RVs visiting the area and the owners spending money, which has got to be a benefit for the region.”

The key need was parking and effluent dump points close to the central business district, Cr Kitchener said.

“At the moment we have RVs coming into Ulladulla but if they can’t find a place to park, and there really aren’t many places suitable for them to park, then they just keep going to the next town,” he added.