{"id":361738,"date":"2025-06-19T18:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T08:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=361738"},"modified":"2025-06-20T18:12:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T08:12:05","slug":"water-taps-to-stay-at-murgon-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/06\/19\/water-taps-to-stay-at-murgon-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Taps To Stay At Murgon Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
South Burnett Regional Council’s 48-hour free camp at Murgon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Cr Heath Sander<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

June 19, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

Individual water connections at the free 48-hour camping area in Murgon will remain, after a debate in the South Burnett Regional Council on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The 21 taps throughout the site are a hangover from when the area in Krebs Street was formerly a caravan park.<\/p>\n

Cr Heath Sander, who has been pressing for the water connections to be disconnected, said it was costing Council about $60,000 a year to maintain the area with mowing, cleaning and water usage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, tourists were avoiding the free camp because other people were staying there permanently.<\/p>\n

“If we disconnected the water, that may urge the permanent people who are staying there … to move on to another location,” Cr Sander said.<\/p>\n

“And it might entice the people who are coming through the region to stay there and actually spend money at the local shops.”<\/p>\n

Deputy Mayor Jane Erkens said there was nowhere near enough housing available for the homeless.<\/p>\n

“The water from those taps actually costs $9 a day,” Cr Erkens said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I’m sure there a lot of people in this room who spend more than $9 a day on their daily coffees.<\/p>\n

“For us to think $9 a day is too expensive for us to help people who are homeless, is pretty upsetting.”<\/p>\n

Cr Erkens said she had stayed overnight in the park recently and had spoken to people there who were just passing through as well as a man who was living there and had been mowing the area until he was told to stop doing it by Council staff.<\/p>\n

She said there were concerns about a tent which had been set up; people were coming to the tent during the early hours “to party” but were not living there.<\/p>\n

“Maybe that is a mistake on our behalf that our compliance officers haven’t gone down there and removed the tent,” Cr Erkens said.<\/p>\n

The Deputy Mayor said she sure none of the people who were living there permanently were doing so through choice … some had jobs but could not find rentals.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cr Ros Heit said it was a minimal cost to ratepayers and although she would not support individual taps being installed in other free parks in the region, the Murgon ones were already there and she felt it would be\u00a0 “a little bit vindictive” to remove them.<\/p>\n

The motion to remove the taps was lost 6-1 with only Cr Sander voting in favour of it.<\/p>\n

However, councillors then voted unanimously to install signs at all the free camps across the region to remind people of the rules and conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Individual water connections at the free 48-hour camping area in Murgon will remain, after a debate in the South Burnett Regional Council on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":361741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,16,3],"tags":[1131,28],"yoast_head":"\nWater Taps To Stay At Murgon Camp - southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Individual water connections at the free 48-hour camping area in Murgon will remain, after a debate in the South Burnett Regional Council on Wednesday.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/06\/19\/water-taps-to-stay-at-murgon-camp\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Water Taps To Stay At Murgon Camp - 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