A country pub is in deepwater with its local council for allowing passing travellers in self-contained caravans to park on their lawn overnight.
After publican Stuart O’Neil wrote a best selling book on mental health, he and his family bought the Deepwater Hotel in northern NSW.
It is located high up in the hinterland on top of the Great Dividing Range between Ballina and Coffs Harbour 140km inland from the coast.
The pub sits on two acres of land with plenty of green space out the back, perfect for passing travellers to pull up, have a meal and stay the night before they continue on their journey.
But the Glenn Innes Severn Council doesn’t agree. They want the pub to submit a development application to become a caravan park.
The council has sent the publican multiple letters threatening him with legal action if he does not comply.
Mr O’Neil said the council wanted them to remove a sign out the front which advertised beer and overnight parking.
“It is literally a grass paddock,” he said.
“Most travellers arrive about 7pm and are gone by 6am.
“The council are pursuing us because someone complained, we are just a country pub on a busy highway. We offer no power, no water, just overnight parking.
“We do that because people feel safe and they come into the pub and have a beer or a meal too.”
Mr O’Neil said 10km down the road the council offered the same thing at a rest area on the side of the highway, a place where caravaners could pull up and stay overnight.
“Here we are supporting locals and employing people in the town,” he said.
“They are claiming we are running a caravan park, and we’re not. We don’t offer powered sites.”
Mr O’Neil said like many pubs in country towns, they relied on travellers stopping in to sustain their business.
“You can’t survive on 300 locals. Without the travellers the pub closes and the town loses their pub.”
While the Glen Innes Severn Council agrees allowing passing travellers to stay overnight benefits the community, it did not negate the fact that legally the pub needed to submit a development application to the council.
“The rules apply to the whole of NSW,” a spokesman for the council said.
“Council would be happy to work with the applicant in securing development consent to ensure that the appropriate standards are met, just as they would with any other applicant.
“Council may take enforcement action against any person or company that does not comply with the NSW legislation, as is the role of council as the regulators in NSW.”
The council has stated a caravan park development was permitted under zoning rules, but the council had not received a development application from the hotel owner.
The spokesman said the council was now “obligated” to take action against the hotel to ensure the development complied with the relevant codes, policies and legislation.
The Standard Instrument Local Environment Plan (LEP) defines a caravan parks as an area of land, with access to communal amenities, used for the installation or placement of caravans, or caravans and other movable dwellings, but did not include farm stay accommodation.
In NSW, certain types of development required consent from authorities, movable dwellings such as caravans and campervans on land was an activity that ordinarily required council approval under the Local Government Act 1993.
While there are limited exemptions from the requirement to obtain approval, the council have said those exemptions did not apply in this case.
The State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021 states that use of land within a local government area for a caravan or camping was prohibited, and could only be carried out with the development consent of the council.
A special provision was made in the regulations for operating “primitive camping grounds” that were remote from urban areas and had limited facilities, but they still had to comply with a number of conditions.
A Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure spokesman said this was matter for council to determine and regulate.
“The NSW government is undertaking a review of the assessment and approval process for caravan parks and manufactured homes estates,” the spokesman said.
“The NSW government wants regional towns to thrive and will work with affected stakeholders as the review progresses.”
Country Pub Camping founder Jackie Bee said councils often lost sight about what was important and the money that was being spent in the community.
“Sometimes lots of money,” she said.
Ms Bee started the Country Pub Camping Facebook group in 2014 which was now acquired a mass following of more than 142,000 like-minded people across Australia.
She started the group after she camped at the Nindigully Pub and had such a great time she started searching for other small towns and pubs she could visit.
“It was quite difficult to find them so I put a list together and created the Facebook group, it grew like crazy,” she said.
The page is all about supporting small communities like Deepwater, in regional areas that might not otherwise see many travellers.
“I could have made the page about bakeries, but not every town has a bakery, it will have a pub though,” she said.
Because caravans were self-contained and set up so well now, Ms Bee said people did not need to stay in a caravan park unless they chose to.
“They can stay at a pub without power and use their own caravan, and it is a safety aspect as well, you can just walk to the pub and you do not have to get behind the wheel later,” she said.
“It is really about getting people into regional communities and talking to people.”
Australian Hotels Association director liquor and policing John Green said regional pubs provided a service and place to relax for the local community, travellers, and grey nomads alike.
“Most bush have got good space around them, so it makes sense for grey nomads and other caravaners to be able to park overnight and grab a meal and a beer – especially when the town doesn’t even have a caravan park,” he said.
“At the end of a long day, where would you prefer to park your caravan – in pub grounds or a caravan park?”